During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
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, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, used to protect the heir from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
