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During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori household in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent 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 protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Professional Changes

But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.

Later Work and Comeback

After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from attack or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.