During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – 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 once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.
Later Work and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
