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During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Professional Changes

Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.