🔗 Share this article

In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.

American Films and Diverse Work

Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book 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

Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging film which avoided typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.