During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director 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 Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book 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 Career Shifts
But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
