Lee Tamahori's Debut Once Were Warriors Showcased a Filmmaker of Guts and Flair

In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Diverse Work

In America, 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 Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.