During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
