In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the 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 Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting 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 directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
