In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book 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.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, 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 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
