The Director's First Film Once Were Warriors Showcased a Director of Courage and Style
In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production 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 filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.
