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In 1994, the 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 melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin 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 chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.

Later Work and Return

After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a forceful, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.