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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 his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, boasting dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Diverse Work

Stateside, the director directed the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through wild terrain 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 earned again directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son Uday and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable movie which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.