During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star 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 turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing 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 such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
