During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore 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 moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
