🔗 Share this article

In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Diverse Work

In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he 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 suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.

Later Work and Return

Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.