During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
