During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
