In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain 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 an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His 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, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
