During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear 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 perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
