During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear 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 Hollywood career was taking on 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. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
