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During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.

American Films and Varied Projects

Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.

Later Work and Comeback

Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.