During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, 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 amusingly 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 earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
