In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
