In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, employed to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
