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During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest debuts of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, 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, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Diverse Work

In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain after their plane crashes. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Professional Changes

But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.

Later Work and Return

After this, the director found renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which avoided typical doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject 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 emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.