During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson 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 serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating 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.
