During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity 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, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences 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 directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, 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 worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
