In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault 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 drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
