During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops 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 the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series 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; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
