During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
