In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
