The Director's Debut Once Were Warriors Showcased a Filmmaker of Courage and Style
During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”
Emotional Violence and Confident Direction
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Varied Projects
Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming 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 Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.
Subsequent Projects and Return
Following this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.