In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging film which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
