In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Later Work and Return
Following this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
