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During 1994, the director Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of the decade, firing on all six cylinders with the heartbreaking social-realist melodrama Once Were Warriors. This family are a working-class Maori family in Auckland's south: Temuera Morrison is the drinking, brawling, bragging dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from drinking in the pub with his weak followers to intimidate and abuse his wife Beth, played by the actress, and their five children. He is entirely indifferent to the future of his two elder sons who have drifted into gang life and crime, as well as his sensitive daughter the girl, who has talent as a storyteller. One son receives gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is partly tutored in the traditions of indigenous heritage – the war dance and the traditional weapon – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth forcefully challenges the despicable Jake: “Our ancestors used to be fighters, but in contrast to you, Jake, they were people with mana, dignity; people with spirit …”

Emotional Violence and Confident Direction

Tamahori let rip with such intense drama, and delivered powerful blows with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, handling them with confidence and verve. He crafted a bold, sincere film with a distinctly 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and reviewers, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who recognized how Tamahori could apply this energy and flair to commercial projects.

American Films and Diverse Work

In America, Tamahori made the dark mystery Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then the David Mamet-scripted survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as characters who journey through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This film gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the chaotic circumstances of filming with a trained bear in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent thriller, and he earned again directing the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.

Bond Film and Career Shifts

Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment mocked for having the poorest device in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.

Subsequent Projects and Comeback

Following this, the director found renewed creativity. The The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's brutal offspring Uday and as well as his body double, used to shield the young tyrant-princeling from attack or abduction: this was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. And in later years, Tamahori returned to the subject of indigenous traditions, making The Convert in 2023, working with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an outstanding director – but it was his first film, the heartfelt Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.