In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson 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 decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging film which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
