During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously 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 thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son the character and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
