During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly 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 directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, used to protect the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
