In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse 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 fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
