During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, 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 became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances 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 sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it 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 recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
