🔗 Share this article

In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts 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 household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Diverse Work

Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming 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 his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.