During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also his body double, used to shield the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
