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During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant first films of the decade, operating at full capacity with the heartbreaking socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a blue-collar Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, played by the actress, 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 the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; the other is sent to a youth detention where he is at least educated in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and learns dignity and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori unleashed with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a gutsy, heartfelt film with a distinctly 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.

Hollywood Career and Varied Projects

In America, the director made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer he wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with a trained bear in his droll tinseltown memoir 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.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

But the high point, or maybe the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was taking on the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the Bond film derided for having the poorest device in the series – the invisible car. Why would anyone need such a car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.

Later Work and Comeback

Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, employed to protect the heir from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable film which avoided typical double tropes. And in later years, he went back to the theme of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. He proved to be an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.