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During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or maybe 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 derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.

Later Work and Return

After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as his body double, employed to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme 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 debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.