During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise 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, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent 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. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers 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 the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
