During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
