In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he 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 thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
