In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse 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 gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly 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 earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – 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.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working 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 greatest work.
