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In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori delivered one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious melodrama Once Were Warriors. The Mekes represent a working-class Maori household in Auckland's south: the actor plays the boozing, fighting, boasting dominant welfare claimant the father, who returns from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their kids. He is entirely indifferent to the fate of his older boys who have fallen into gangland culture and crime, as well as his gentle daughter the girl, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a juvenile reformatory where he is at least tutored in the traditions of Maori culture – the war dance and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. But back at the disordered home, Grace is raped by Jake’s grotesque friend “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and Beth 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 intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with the pub scenes, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, sincere film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It succeeded with viewers and critics, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who recognized how he could apply that dynamism and talent to commercial projects.

American Films and Varied Projects

Stateside, the director directed the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for procedure, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with the actor and his co-star as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This film became a cult favorite when its 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 serviceable thriller, and he had another payday directing the sequel 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 Lee Tamahori’s Hollywood career was directing the Bond movie Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; it was the installment derided for having the worst gadget in 007 history – the invisible car. What is the point an invisible car, viewers asked? It was a vehicle which makes it very hard to recall its parking spot.

Subsequent Projects and Return

Following this, Tamahori found some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, employed to protect the young tyrant-princeling from attack or kidnapping: it was a forceful, engaging film which avoided the usual doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of Maori culture, making The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer Shane Danielsen. Tamahori was an outstanding filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.