In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, used to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
