🔗 Share this article

In 1994, the 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 melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Diverse Work

In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie 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 suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided typical double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.