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In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor is the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who returns from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

Stateside, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.

Later Work and Return

Following this, the director found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also his body double, used to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, watchable film which avoided typical doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.