In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s touch 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 bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked 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 remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
