In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on 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 – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
