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In 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with his heartbreaking social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar indigenous family in South Auckland: the actor plays the boozing, brawling, boasting alpha-male benefit recipient the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; soulful beings …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and gang initiation rituals, handling them with confidence and verve. He created a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s streak of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring this energy and talent to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Diverse Work

Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who ignore procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting 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.

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 Pierce Brosnan; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to remember where you parked it.

Later Work and Return

After this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, working with writer his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his debut, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.