🔗 Share this article The Director's Debut Once Were Warriors Revealed a Filmmaker of Guts and Flair In 1994, this director Lee Tamahori made one of the most significant debuts of that era, operating at full capacity with his gut-wrenching socially conscious drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class indigenous household in South Auckland: the actor plays the drinking, brawling, bragging alpha-male welfare claimant Jake, who comes home from pub visits with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, 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, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who shows promise as a storyteller. A son receives gang tattoos; another 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 gains dignity and self-respect. But back at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by Jake’s grotesque friend “Bully”; disaster follows, and Beth passionately confronts the despicable Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were people with mana, pride; people with spirit …” Raw Emotion and Confident Direction Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, domestic moments and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with confidence and energy. He created a gutsy, heartfelt film with a very 90s touch of brash and trash. It was a hit with viewers and reviewers, and – whether positive or negative – strongly influenced studio heads in Hollywood who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and flair to commercial projects. Hollywood Career and Diverse Work In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about violent LAPD cops who care nothing for protocol, and then a script by Mamet survival thriller The Bear with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin as characters who trek through the wilderness after a plane crash. (This moderate movie became a cult favorite when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his droll tinseltown memoir What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a decent suspense film, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the XXX series XXX State of the Union. 007 Movie and Career Shifts Yet the peak, or maybe the nadir, of his Hollywood career was directing the 007 film 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. What is the point such a car, audiences wondered? This car that makes it difficult to recall its parking spot. Subsequent Projects and Comeback After this, the director discovered renewed creativity. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 featured the actor in dual parts of Saddam Hussein’s hideous son the character and as well as his body double, employed to shield the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or abduction: this was a forceful, watchable movie which sidestepped typical doppelganger cliches. In subsequent times, Tamahori returned to the subject of Maori culture, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with writer his partner. He proved to be an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his greatest work.