In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
