During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts 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 family in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second 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 American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
