In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (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 suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
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 the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. 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, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
