During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its 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 decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
