🔗 Share this article

In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts 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 South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Varied Projects

In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

Yet the peak, or maybe 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, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.

Later Work and Comeback

After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.