🔗 Share this article

In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.