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In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, bragging dominant benefit recipient Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his weak followers to intimidate and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed industry executives in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.

American Films and Diverse Work

In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when its producer he 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 his American work was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the Bond film mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.

Later Work and Return

After this, Tamahori discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring the character and as well as Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or kidnapping: it was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.