During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as 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 partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, 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 emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made 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 the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his American work 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 – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible 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 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
