During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits 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 fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
