During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances 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 directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
