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During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the boozing, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives 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 self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

Stateside, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Career Shifts

But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.

Later Work and Comeback

After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging movie which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, he returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.