During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming 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 second 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 American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
