In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
