In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed 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
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, 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 Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
