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During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and flair to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Varied Projects

In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously 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

Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.

Later Work and Return

Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.