During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive 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 traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
