In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori household in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama 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 the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor 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.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
