In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, he returned 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.
