In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, 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 in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
