During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly 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 thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
