Lee Tamahori's Debut The Warriors Showcased a Filmmaker of Courage and Style

During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor is the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Varied Projects

In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer he 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 serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The 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 young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.