🔗 Share this article

During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Diverse Work

In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The 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 heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.