In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
