During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
