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In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a blue-collar Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; soulful beings …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could apply this energy and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Diverse Work

In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his American work 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 the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.

Later Work and Comeback

Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.