During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
