Lee Tamahori's First Film The Warriors Revealed a Filmmaker of Guts and Flair

During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly 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 suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.

Later Work and Return

Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. 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 young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.