In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
