During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
