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In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

After this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.