During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed 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 his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on 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. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
