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In 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, bragging alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, played by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the fate of his two elder sons who have fallen into gangland culture and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son gets tattoos; another is taken to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori let rip with all this emotional violence, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced industry executives in the film industry who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

Stateside, 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 two men who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again filming 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 Hollywood career was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the poorest device in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to remember its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and also Uday’s decoy double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: it was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer Shane Danielsen. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.