Vietnam

Vietnam is a 1987 Australian TV mini-series directed by Chris Noonan and John Duigan. It stars Barry Otto, Nicole Kidman and Nicholas Eadie. The series won the Logie Award for Most Popular Single Telemovie or Miniseries. Plot Set in the 1960s through to the early 1970s, Vietnam is a mini-series about Australia's involvement in the Vietnam war. The Goddard family live in Canberra – Public servant Douglas, Evelyn (Veronica Lang) and their son Phil and daughter Megan. Aged 15, Megan is now a rebellious teenager, infuriating her conservative parents whilst her older sibling Phil is a budding photographer. Australia joins the war in Vietnam and the strains and stresses it places on the Goddard family mirror the political and social upheavals the country experiences in the 1960s. Phil is called up in the national draft and he reluctantly goes to do his duty with Australian army forces in Vietnam. He encounters the harsh realities of the war when the platoon walks into a minefield in a rice paddy, losing several men including Phil's friend Ritchie. Phil is horrified as his unit is ordered to assist South Vietnamese forces to forcibly evacuate and destroy a peasant village. Phil and his best mate Laurie become romantically involved with Vietnamese sisters Lien and Le. Back home, Douglas' workaholic lifestyle is straining his marriage and both parents are growing distant from their increasingly headstrong daughter Megan. The latter begins a relationship with an older boy Serge and she has to, at first, pretend to be a fellow university student to become involved with him. Serge goes away to University in Sydney and Megan later runs away from home to join him. Phil comes home on leave but the traumatic experiences of the war weigh heavily on him and he can no longer adjust to normal life. Phil and Laurie return to the war which is growing ever more bloodier and cruel. Le is gang-raped by a platoon of US soldiers who have been brutalized by their experiences of combat. One American soldier is left behind to execute Le but he cannot bring himself to do it, instead he cuts off one of her ears and fires a shot into the dirt, in order to convince his comrades that he had killed her and taken a 'souvenir'. Outraged by the sufferings of her people, Lien joins the Viet Cong. During the Tet Offensive, her group ambushes an Australian truck, wiping out the occupants including Laurie who is left permanently disabled by his injuries.