During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie 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 Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
