In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances 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 XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – 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.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His 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 protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
