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During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from pub visits 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 future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions 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 “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Varied Projects

Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer he 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 serviceable thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Professional Changes

But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

After this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.