In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played 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, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – 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
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller 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 two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
