During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted 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, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 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 that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
