During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. 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 ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he 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 serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
