🔗 Share this article

In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed 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, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers 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 mainstream genre material.

American Films and Diverse Work

Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, 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 maybe the low point, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.

Later Work and Return

After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.