In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
