In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his 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? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
