In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
