In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, 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, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
