🔗 Share this article

In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Diverse Work

In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (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 serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.

Later Work and Return

Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.