During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy 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 trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming 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 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 Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
