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During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with all this 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 created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Diverse Work

In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, 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 low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.

Later Work and Return

After this, the director discovered 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 as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.