In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, 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 gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson 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 decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
