During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear 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.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
