During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
