In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, 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 shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
