In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
