During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
