In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori unleashed with such 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 bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
Hollywood Career and Varied Projects
Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. 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 exceptional director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
