During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore 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 its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production 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 filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing 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 such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following 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 brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, used to protect the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
