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During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Varied Projects

In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Career Shifts

But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

Following this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.