🔗 Share this article

In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

In America, Tamahori made 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 characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.

Later Work and Return

After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.