In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, the director made 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 Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
