In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller 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 his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
