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In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Diverse Work

In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging film which sidestepped typical double tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, 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 greatest work.