Product Details

• Actors: Bryan Brown, Bill Hunter, John Clayton, Helen Morse, John Bell
• Directors: John Duigan
• Producers: Far East
• Format: Import, PAL
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Region: Region 4 (Read more about DVD formats.)
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Magna Pacific
• Run Time: 107 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000CQBSVW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #362,511 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Australia released, PAL/Region 4 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: Set in the mysterious Far East, a lonely wife rediscovers an old flame while her husband investigates rumours of political suppression.When journalist Peter Reeves and his wife Jo visit the 'The Koala Klub' run Australian Morgan Keefe the past catches up with them. Twenty years earlier, Jo and Morgan were lovers in Saigon and although time has passed, it is obvious the flame could be rekindled. But when Peter is captured by secret Government troops, tortured and faced with certain death, Morgan is the only one who can rescue him. A tough story of human emotions stretched to the limit by war, love and mystery. SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Australian Film Institute, ...Far East

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Two men loved her. Only one could have her, September 18, 2001

By 

Peter Shelley "petershelley" (Sydney, New South Wales Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Far East [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Australian writer director John Duigan's drama is a retread of Casablanca, with Bryan Brown playing stoic Bogie and Helen Morse as his emotional Ingrid Bergman. The former lovers reunited gets an added local spin since Brown and Morse starred together in the TVM of A Town Like Alice, and it's their familiarity which accounts for their screen chemistry. However the political intrigue that passes for WW2 here is the Phillipines where Morse's husband John Bell is a crusading journalist out to expose multinational exploitation. Brown himself owns the Koala Klub, an oasis for Australians, which features local girls dancing to some of the worst dance music imaginable, and the way Duigan's camera lingers on the girls and the men learing at them, suggests that Brown is also an exploiter. Brown gets a chance to do something apart from serve drinks and be a larrikan when Bell is arrested and Morse asks for his help. That the rescue mission is ludicrous is not a surprise after we get Brown in a bar brawl to show how tough he is, his Phillipino girlfriend hysterically expressing her jealousy of Morse, the military presented the way the Japanese are in American WW2 propaganda, and a cliched slo mo finale, though there is an effective rape scene viewed from an expressionist angle. Brown isn't the kind of actor to let us in on his private feelings for Morse. Even given that her alternative is the somewhat dull Bell who actually shows more romantic interest in the Phillipino activist he befriends, we can guess who she will pick to go with at the end. She has fun with her French accent, is funny when she is angry, and wears a fabulous ostrich style dress at a party.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Far East Redux, March 3, 2011

By 

Rapscallion - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Far East [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I was hoping it would be a bit more like Morse and Brown's previous movie " A Town Like Alice " which was on par with " For Whom The Bell Tolls "... But it fell way short. But Helen Morse and Bryan Brown made it worth watching anyway.