In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, 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 at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery 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 two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film 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, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered 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, employed to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
