In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
