During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
