In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, 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 …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops 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 journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly 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 sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
