In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
