During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
