In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously 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 filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
