In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, 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 boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director made 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 Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
