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In 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the boozing, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and abuse his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth forcefully challenges the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced industry executives in Hollywood who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

Stateside, Tamahori made 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 Anthony Hopkins and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; it was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Return

Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.