User Reviews

Here's one of the best two part dramas, I've seen in quite a while. This one sadly doesn't have a happy end. It has an all so grim one, that is haunting in the last number of disturbing, upsetting scenes. When learning of Van Nyghen's reasons for doing what he did, it wasn't so he could profit. This poor innocent boy with no arrest record, made one fatal mistake, that subsequently ending his life. We follow his story through flashbacks, to his arrest, and then the start of his three year nightmare. Remy is so believable, displaying many levels of emotion to his character, it's an impressive piece of professional acting. I truly believe he got where this character was coming from, as if almost watching the real deal. Wenham is just top form as Nyghen's lawyer where Brown lends solid support as Wenham's colleague, barrister, while Karvan too is solid as Wenham's wife. This effective real life drama paints a grim and stark reality to the fate of the drug smuggler, where in this this case, this one mistake, earned an unjustful execution. Some of the flashbacks of Nhygen in happier times threw sad tones to the film, where we so much wish, no more Nyghen that he could go back in time that instant. Some other flashbacks show the real sort of scum Van was working for, for when he tried to back out, threats were made upon his family. These are the real ones who should be executed. That admittance that had Van saying "I'm not doing this for you", was the key moment to the show. Only criticism is in the first part, the story took a while to get to where it was going as up to the point of Nyghen's arrest. Highly recommended.

Really good mini series All the actors were really good

But the few that stands outs are the lead actor playing Van Tuong Nguyen, the mother.

Some very powerful performances.

And the ending is really emotional and heart wrenching to watch.

To hear about the execution on the morning news is one thing. But to see it played out on the screen is so much more powerful.

There was one neg, mainly why they didn't cast actual Vietnamese actors to play the brothers. Maybe they couldn't find actual Vietnamese actors who could act as well as the two actors that played the brothers?

So in the scenes where Vietnamese is spoken by the brothers, anyone who understands Vietnamese has a hard time hearing it, since the actors don't actually speak Vietnamese. It's like hearing an Australian speaking Vietnamese. So in those scenes it makes you stop being focus on the scene due to the bad pronunciation.

Either way it was still a good mini series and hopefully this will get some nominations and awards.