The Director's First Film The Warriors Revealed a Director of Courage and Style

In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Varied Projects

In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.

Later Work and Comeback

After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.