Lee Tamahori's First Film Once Were Warriors Showcased a Director of Guts and Flair

During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances 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 had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Career Shifts

But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing 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 an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.

Later Work and Return

After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.