The Director's First Film The Warriors Revealed a Director of Guts and Flair

In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Varied Projects

Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.

Later Work and Return

Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.