Bangkok Hilton

Granted, the first 20 minutes are somewhat boring, but from there, the film just takes off! A brilliant story (and the basis of films like Breakdown Palace) sets this off from the beginning to the very end.

Nicole Kidman's performance and transformation from a quiet, shy country girl into a tough, cunning prisoner is incredible and so well-done.

Bravo to the actors, producers, directors, to EVERYONE involved in BANGKOK HILTON! Well worth a watch for everybody who likes drama, action, thrillers, romance and for everybody who doesn't!

It must be the ultimate horror for any backpacker / long distance traveller: you get jailed in a foreign country whose language you do not speak and where you can expect "a fair trial plus a fine hanging", even as an innocent party.

The plot may be somewhat too well constructed. Normally, parents and friends would protest against the arrest of an innocent tourist, especially if the tourist never never had anything to do with drugs.

You bet I look particularly well after my luggage in such countries!

Meanwhile a similar case has taken place in Indonesia: the Australian tourist Schapelle Corby was sentenced to 20 years in jail for drug possession. The scenario was very similar: the defendant insists the drugs were planted, the case is not too solid, but enough for a conviction.

When it first starts out it is about Katherine, a rather fragile but lovely young woman, always being derided by her mother just so she doesn't forget she is an unlovable homebody of a woman. Think of this segment as a maternal version of "The Heiress".

And then along comes a suitor, an unlikely romantic lead in the person of Denholm Elliot. This mysterious attorney sweeps Katherine off her feet. But then a revelation- Elliot's character is a disgraced WWII soldier who betrayed his fellow soldiers when he was a POW. There are mitigating factors, but nonetheless, mom now has a reason to sweep this guy out of Katharine's life. And then Katherine discovers she is pregnant. K's mom makes K have the baby AND raise it herself mainly so she can never let Katherine forget that she made a fool of herself over a man. Just like she always said she would do. Funny, my grandma made cookies for me and read me stories. But I digress.

And then Katherine dies and leaves her daughter, Katrina (Nicole Kidman) their Australian estate. Katrina has never been off the ranch and wants to find her father, so off this naive young girl goes into the world. She has as poor judgment in men as her mother had been chronically accused of, and so she ends up with a traveling companion that gets her in deep trouble for heroin possession in Thailand. And from there it becomes a nightmare of a film. Not in quality - it is very good - but in the sordid details of the Bangkok Hilton in which Katrina is imprisoned. And then dad pops back into the picture.

Like I said, the film changes tones very starkly during its long running time - it was actually a miniseries. And Nicole Kidman shows what made her a star. Even before Tom Cruise, Nicole had the muse.

I saw this film along time ago, when I was about 10 or 11 years old. In recent times I've mention it to many persons and nobody seems to have ever seen or heard of it. This is hands down one of the best movie/performance I have ever seen in my entire life. Anyone who has any doubt as whether Nicole Kidman can act, watch this movie. I honestly don't want to say anything about the movie, other than get it and watch it. I'll state the obvious, the story took place in Bangkok, Thailand. I cannot understand why it has not been seen by the masses, since 'Hollywood' like to ride 'the celebrity of the moment' band wagon and ironically this is actually a good wagon to hop on. The mini contains typical Hollywood stuff, Deception, Confinement, Damsel in Distress, a well as 'Pharmaceutical' and a 'Pharmacist'. Try to get it and watch it, It's tight.

When I first have seen these Tv-series in Russia, I didn't have an opportunity to see it from the beginning, but I was surprised. It's the best TV-film I have ever seen, and it's Kidman's best performance. KEN Cameron did a great job. So does Grame Revell's fantastic, brilliant score. It grips you so much, you are nervous, it's so WONDERFULLY and realstically acted and directed, you even forget that you're in front of your TV set. By the way, the scenes of Nicole Kidman's redemption were borrowed later by Frank Darabont in his adaptation of Stephen King's "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption". It's such a pity that this movie was not taken too seriously and it passed by too quickly, and at the same time we have ridiculous bad acted features like Titanic. By the way, I managed to buy a video with these series, and I'm so HAPPY!