In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, 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 low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
