During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to 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 the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
