🔗 Share this article

In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.