In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
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 a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday 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 low point, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
