In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth 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 wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – 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 made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he 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 filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
