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During 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes are a blue-collar Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, fighting, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by the actress, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have drifted into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets 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 taiaha warrior spear – and gains dignity and pride. Meanwhile at the disordered home, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; disaster follows, and the mother passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors once were warriors, but in contrast to you, they, they were individuals with honor, dignity; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with such emotional violence, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with assurance and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere picture with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – deeply impressed studio heads in the film industry who could see how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.

American Films and Varied Projects

Stateside, the director directed 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 Alec Baldwin as two men who trek through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote humorously about the turbulent production of shooting with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he earned again filming the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

007 Movie and Professional Changes

But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the worst gadget in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle that makes it difficult to recall where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

Following this, Tamahori discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured Dominic Cooper in the twin roles of Saddam Hussein’s brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a forceful, watchable film which avoided typical double cliches. And in later years, he returned to the theme of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his debut, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.