In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he 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 had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
