In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its 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 serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
