During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
