In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously 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 suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
