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In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, including his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets gang tattoos; the other is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly educated in the ways of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and pride. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but unlike you, they, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with such emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, heartfelt picture with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and flair to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Varied Projects

In America, the director made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its 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 serviceable suspense film, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film 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 remember its parking spot.

Later Work and Comeback

Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.