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In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Varied Projects

Stateside, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.