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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 the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

Stateside, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

But the high point, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Return

After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.