In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
