During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played 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 illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery 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 his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
