Lee Tamahori's Debut Once Were Warriors Revealed a Director of Guts and Flair
During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Varied Projects
In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he 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 thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
After this, Tamahori 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, used to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
