In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its 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 second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
