During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault 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, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson 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.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
