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In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who returns from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is partly tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; soulful beings …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of edginess. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.

American Films and Varied Projects

Stateside, Tamahori directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir 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 Career Shifts

Yet the peak, 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 Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the heir from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.