During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this 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, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
