During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
