I lashed out 6 kuai and bought "Australia". What a collection of cinematic cliches!!
It's so bad, it could almost be a comedy. The photography is ordinary, the lighting is very amateurish...if I noticed it, that's amateurish.....the matte paintings were noticeable as matte paintings.....Darwin Harbour, the smoke from the ships never moved...the ripples (moving) were waaay out of proportion to the ships, which also didn't move. The obligatory stampede, (a must for every movie about droving) starts in the pitch black of night, then bursts out into the midday sun!
The introduction of the heroine to Australia...a bar-room brawl, featuring the hero. "Crocodile Dundee, anyone?
The same hackneyed use of "long-ago-shoulda-retired" B-grade australian actors in the supporting cast.....Bruce Spence?
The usual stereotypes...The English "Lady-with-a-broom-up-her-arse", the tut-tutting local matrons, the tough "drover-who-can't-ride-a-horse-properly", the suitably evil bad guys, the "aborigine-who-always-stands-on-one-leg", the "absolute-wreck-of-a-homestead-which-miraculously-transforms-after-a-shower-of-rain", etc. Oh, yes. The dancing-in-the-street-scene, when the "Big Wet arrives.
Mucking about with history. Never let the facts get in the way of a mediocre story. Japanese soldiers invading a mission island the day after the bombing of Darwin? Never happened, but it was an opportunity to get rid of the "drovers-best-aboriginal-mate".
The Number Two bad guy saying..." Yeah, no, blah, blah,blah!
Waste of a good 6 kuai!
Apart from all that, the little Aborigine kid "kicked arse". Big time!!!