In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent 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 maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
