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During 1994, the film-maker Lee Tamahori delivered one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class indigenous family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault Beth, his spouse, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and crime, including his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets tattoos; another is taken to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the haka and the traditional weapon – and gains self-worth and pride. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, Grace is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but unlike you, they, they were individuals with honor, pride; people with spirit …”

Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking

Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere picture with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – whether positive or negative – deeply impressed studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how Tamahori could bring this energy and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Varied Projects

Stateside, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who care nothing for procedure, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through wild terrain after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote humorously 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 directing the second in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

But the high point, or perhaps the low point, of his American work was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in the series – a cloaked vehicle. Why would anyone need an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred Dominic Cooper in dual parts of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and also his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, engaging movie which sidestepped the usual double cliches. And in later years, he returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it was his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.