In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
But the high point, 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 Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided typical double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
