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In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, 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 unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Diverse Work

Stateside, 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 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 amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.

Later Work and Return

After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual double cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.