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During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A 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 taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

In America, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he 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 decent suspense film, and he earned again directing the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Return

Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable movie which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.