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In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. One son gets gang tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s streak of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and flair to commercial projects.

American Films and Varied Projects

In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances 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 directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.

Later Work and Return

After this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.