During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse 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 gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly 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 thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
