In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; the other is sent 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 self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career 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 the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
