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During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, played by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people once were warriors, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, directing them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Varied Projects

In America, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Career Shifts

But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car which makes it very hard to recall where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Return

Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and also his body double, used to protect the heir from attack or kidnapping: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.