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Peter Weir

Mel Gibson, Linda Hunt

A foreign correspondent in Indonesia during Sukarno’s regime forms a close friendship with a local photographer who may have some unorthodox political connections.

Billy Kwan: We'll make a great team, old man. You for the words, me for the pictures.  I can be your eyes.

Guy Hamilton is a young Australian reporter newly arrived in Jakharta in the last days of the Sukharno regime. He’s replacing a predecessor who left in such a hurry he couldn’t be bothered to show Hamilton the ropes.

Billy Kwan, a dwarfish, half-Chinese photographer, steps in to help, and Hamilton begins to grasp the reality of what’s happening – and what’s about to happen – in Indonesia.  Mel Gibson fills the bill as a callow, driven journalist and Sigourney Weaver is suitably intriguing as an embassy worker who tells Hamilton too much.  It’s Linda Hunt, however, who stands out as the compassionate Billy Kwan in this story of personal and political betrayal.