In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Diverse Work
Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson 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 decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Return
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
