In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status 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 decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
