In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
