🔗 Share this article

In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.

Later Work and Return

Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging film which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.