In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
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 the star; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, he 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 remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
