In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.
American Films and Diverse Work
Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
007 Movie and Professional Changes
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
