During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
