During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson 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 serviceable thriller, and he earned again 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 Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical double cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
