In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
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 Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
