In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
