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During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Professional Changes

Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

After this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.