In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
