During 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 are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to 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 the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director made 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 Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, used to protect the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
