In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub 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 future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
