In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film 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? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
