In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller 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 Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
