In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, 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 shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite 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 decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was taking on 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 such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles 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 forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
