During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller 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 amusingly 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 thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
