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During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller 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 Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear 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 nadir, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; 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? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

After this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.