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During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, pride; 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 gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its 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 suspense film, and he had another payday filming the second in the triple-X franchise 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 Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.