Bangkok Hilton
| Bangkok Hilton | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Miniseries |
| Written by |
Ken Cameron (story), Terry Hayes (story), Tony Morphett (story), Terry Hayes (screenplay) |
| Directed by | Ken Cameron |
| Starring |
Nicole Kidman, Denholm Elliott, Hugo Weaving, Joy Smithers |
| Composer(s) | Graeme Revell |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes | 3 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) |
Terry Hayes, Doug Mitchell, George Miller |
| Running time | 120 minutes each (with commercials) (270 mins total) |
| Release | |
| Original network | 10 TV Australia |
| Picture format | PAL, Colour, 4:3 |
| Original release | 5 November – 7 November 1989 |
Bangkok Hilton is a three-part Australian mini-series, made in 1989 by Kennedy Miller Productions and directed by Ken Cameron. The title of the mini-series is, in the story, the nickname of a fictional Bangkok prison in which the protagonist is imprisoned, a mordant reference to Hanoi Hilton, the prison known as such used by North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
Bangkok Hilton begins as Hal Stanton (Denholm Elliott) leaves Bangkok by ship in the present day. He explains that he has been travelling for years, since a shameful incident when he was a prisoner of the Japanese right there in Bangkok in WWII.
He then takes us to 1960s Sydney, where he was working as a lawyer under the assumed name of Graham Greene. He falls in love with Katherine Faulkner (Judy Morris), the lovely but sheltered daughter of a wealthy family who live in a huge, isolated mansion in the outback. He visits the estate and woos Katherine and they fall passionately in love, but Hal's secret identity is soon exposed. During the war he notoriously betrayed a group of his own men, who were planning an escape, to their Japanese captors, and was later court-martialled for it. The fact that he did so to protect the rest of his men from reprisals was considered irrelevant, and he has lived with the shame ever since. Katherine's family break up the relationship and Hal moves, despondently, away. Katherine is pregnant, however, and soon gives birth to Katrina. The young girl is raised on her own at the estate, treated as a shameful product of the illicit affair. A few years later, Katrina, now grown (Nicole Kidman), loses her mother to cancer and inherits the family fortune. Having never ventured off the estate, she travels to Sydney, where she learns that her father is not dead, as she was always told. She decides to go to London, where his family lived, to track him down.
In London, she makes contact with the uncle and cousin she has never met before, overcoming their initial reluctance to meet with her. While planning her return to Australia, Katrina is befriended by Arkie Ragan (Jerome Ehlers), a young American photojournalist who becomes her lover and travelling companion. When the trail leads Katrina to Bangkok, Arkie suggests they go by way of Goa. While enjoying a romantic weekend there, he secretly picks up a shipment of heroin and loads it into a hidden compartment in the carrying case of a camera he has given to Katrina. Katrina and Arkie attempt to find Hal in Bangkok, but find the family lawyer, Richard Carlisle (Hugo Weaving), unwilling to help. Reluctantly returning to Australia, Katrina is arrested at the airport when drug sniffing dogs detect the drugs in her camera case. Arkie, who had joined another queue in the customs hall, disappears.
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