In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
