''Turtle Beach'', also known as ''The Killing Beach'', is a 1992 Australian film directed by Stephen Wallace and starring

Greta Scacchi Greta Scacchi, OMRI (; born 18 February 1960) is an Italian-Australian actress. She holds dual Italian and Australian citizenship. She is best known for her roles in the films '' White Mischief'' (1987), '' Presumed Innocent'' (1990), '' The Pl ...

and

Joan Chen Joan Chen (born April 26, 1961) is a Chinese-American actress and film director. In China, she performed in the 1979 film and came to the attention of American audiences for her performance in the 1987 film '' The Last Emperor''. She is also ...

. The screenplay was written by Ann Turner, based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Blanche d'Alpuget. It caused controversy in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

, where the government took exception to scenes of Malays executing refugees.

Premise

Judith, an Australian photojournalist, leaves her family to cover the story of

Vietnamese boat people Vietnamese boat people ( vi, Thuyền nhân Việt Nam), also known simply as boat people, refers to the refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. This migration and humanitarian crisis was at its ...

in a Malaysian refugee camp. There she befriends Minou, a Vietnamese

streetwalker Street prostitution is a form of sex work in which a sex worker solicits customers from a public place, most commonly a street, while waiting at street corners or walking alongside a street, but also other public places such as parks, benches, e ...

, who has married a diplomat and together they try to bring awareness to the terrible conditions suffered by the people there.

Principal cast

Production

Ann Turner was working for Roadshow when she was hired to adapt the novel, which she loved."Interview with Ann Turner", ''Signis'', 16 January 1998
Retrieved 21 November 2012 However she says the project soon became compromised:

When I first saw the film I thought it looked like the writer was on drugs or completely insane, because you could see there were two films working within the one film... There were a lot of different voices in terms of the finance-raising, there was American money, and the producers - many, plural - really had very different views of what the film should be. Greta Scacchi really liked the book and liked the script and fought for it. But during the process of developing the script, they brought in an American writer and it really changed. I was off directing ''
Police Rescue ''Police Rescue'' is an Australian television series which originally aired on ABC TV between 1989 and 1996. It was produced by ABC and Southern Star Xanadu in association with the BBC. Apart from the 61 episodes, there was a 90-minute pi ...
'' at the time. Then the cast, when they were in Thailand, said they'd signed on the script that I'd written and wanted to change it back to that. There was something about the American script that was more like '' King Rat'' than ''Turtle Beach''. So then I was flown out to Thailand to rewrite the rewrite and the film ended up actually being a combination of both.

The film was financed in part by the people who had invested in ''Blood Oath'', directed by Stephen Wallace. They were enthusiastic about that film and hired Wallace to direct. Wallace:

I loved the book and I really wanted to make the film. I think in the end the script really wasn't good enough and I had a terrible run-in with the producer on it. It was just a nightmare. I wanted to make a film about Asia again, because I thought Asia was misunderstood in Australia and I thought the more light we can shed on Asians, the better... But unfortunately in the film, it all went haywire ... The producers all wanted to make '' Pretty Woman''. I said, "It's not ''Pretty Woman'', it's a film about Asia." I had to fight to get an Indian to play the Indian; it was a struggle from start to finish. There was plenty of money, but I kept compromising on it. I kept compromising about the place where the beach was, about the roughness of the set. I wanted it really rough. Then there was this whole thing about the disco place, which was actually Matt Carroll's idea, something he'd seen in Thailand... Also the massacre on the beach. Everyone was worried, the massacre had to be built up, whereas the massacre was wrong - emotionally and morally wrong. All this was pushed and I felt I'd lost control of the film.

The Australian

Film Finance Corporation The Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) was the government agency responsible for funding commercial productions of Australian film, documentary, and television from 1988 to 2008. Unlike other publicly funded organisations responsible for f ...

invested $5,248,857 in the film. Stephen Wallace finished the film and made his cut but then he was fired off the film. Extra scenes were shot:

I should have taken my name off it. I got advised by my agents not to, but I should have. I don't feel the film is mine. A lot of the shots are mine, but extra stuff was shot and my name is on it, so I've got to take responsibility for it. But it's the one film I've made that I feel ashamed of... it was Matt Carroll who made it."Interview with Stephen Wallace", ''Signis'', 21 November 1998
Retrieved 21 November 2012

Release

''Turtle Beach'' grossed $359,881 at the box office in Australia and $778,535 in the United States. Wallace has not directed another feature since. He says making this wrecked his feature film career. Ozmovies says of the release:

The film was a flop, and notoriously and jokingly came to be dubbed Turkey Beach by some film pundits. Roadshow reverted to the old trick of opening the show without reviewer previews, which almost guaranteed a jaundiced response. The film didn’t do as badly as some early FFC films - at least it scored a theatrical release and turned a little coin - but relative to budget and considering the name cast and controversies surrounding it, the result was both a commercial and a critical misfire.'Turtle Beach'
a
Ozmovies
retrieved 14 October 2017.

Soundtrack

*"Rock-A-Beatin' Boogie" performed by

Bill Haley William John Clifton Haley (; July 6, 1925 – February 9, 1981) was an American rock and roll musician. He is credited by many with first popularizing this form of music in the early 1950s with his group Bill Haley & His Comets and million-sel ...

*"Fly Away" performed by Simone Dee *"Come on Boys" performed by Simone Dee

Critical reception

Chris Hicks of '' Deseret News'':

References

External links

* * *
Turtle Beach
a
Ozmovies
{{Stephen Wallace 1992 films 1990s adventure drama films Australian adventure drama films Films based on Australian novels Films set in Malaysia Films shot in Sydney Films shot in Thailand Regency Enterprises films Village Roadshow Pictures films Films directed by Stephen Wallace Films scored by Chris Neal (songwriter) Films about refugees Warner Bros. films 1992 drama films 1990s English-language films