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In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and energy. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how he could apply that dynamism and flair to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

In America, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly 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 had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise 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 Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.

Later Work and Return

After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which sidestepped the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.