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During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, fighting, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

In America, Tamahori directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin 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 chaotic circumstances 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

Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.

Later Work and Return

Following this, the director found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.