In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions 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 “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson 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 earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
