During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, 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 gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his 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 worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
