During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made 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 are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched 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 let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
