In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches 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 the film industry who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
