In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; 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, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status 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 had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
