In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another 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 raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
