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

In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear 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.

007 Movie and Career Shifts

But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

After this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, used to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.