🔗 Share this article

During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A 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 traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Return

Following this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.