In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel 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 American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
