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During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a writer. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

In America, Tamahori 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 the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when its 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 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 maybe the low point, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging film which avoided the usual double cliches. And in later years, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.