🔗 Share this article

In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse 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 drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Diverse Work

Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting 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 sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.

Later Work and Comeback

After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.