In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for 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 moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
