In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously 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 earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
