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During 1994, the director 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 South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, 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 edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – 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 Diverse Work

Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore 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 film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

After this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.