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During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar indigenous family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Varied Projects

In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with an animal actor 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 triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

After this, Tamahori found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.