During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, 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 created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made 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 his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, 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 nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
