During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming 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 directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable 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 writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
