During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing 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. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The 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 heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
