During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub 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 older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as 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 ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
