In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery 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 Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
