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In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, 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.

American Films and Varied Projects

Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status 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 serviceable suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.

Later Work and Comeback

Following this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the theme 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 first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.