During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His 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 assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
