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In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest debuts of the decade, operating at full capacity with his heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the drinking, fighting, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who has talent as a writer. A son receives tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and gains self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori unleashed with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and energy. He crafted a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Diverse Work

Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when its producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of shooting with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday directing the second in the XXX series XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Career Shifts

But the high point, or perhaps the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with Pierce Brosnan; this was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot.

Later Work and Comeback

Following this, the director discovered renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring the character and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to shield the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a punchy, engaging movie which avoided the usual double tropes. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an exceptional director – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.