🔗 Share this article

In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Professional Changes

But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.

Later Work and Comeback

Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.