In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
