During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, 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 sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir 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.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
