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During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits 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 fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.