Tenko - The Complete Series [DVD]

So of its time that one could replace it in its slot in TV history blindfolded; Colditz (1972/73) was Public Schoolboys Outwit The Hun, Secret Army (1977-79) was Grim Girls With Guns, this is Women Had It Tough Out East, the decidedly 1980s Feminist angle on the Second World War, in which none of the main characters have guns at all, and are struggling to survive against enormous hardship callously inflicted by their Japanese captors.Japan, it is only fair to point out, does not emerge from any of this with very much credit, and (just to make it clear) their 'Fourth Class' women prisoners have never once fired a shot in anger at a Japanese person; they're all (fairly) innocent civilians that were trying to get out of Singapore and well away from the whole shooting match, when the Japanese Navy sunk their ship and slung the survivors in hellish camps in the jungle. So not just cruel but cowardly as well - some Japanese diplomats complained to the BBC at the lack of balance, Some people might say that if you don't want your contemptible war crimes to come back and haunt you 40 years later on prime time telly, maybe you're better off not committing them in the first place.It's good, articulate, competently-written, and well-acted BBC fare (the first two episodes, written by Paul Wheeler, promise rather more than the rest ultimately deliver, and there are a couple of continuity glitches in episode three) addressing issues like class, corruption, competence and a changing world as well as the more usual wartime staples of integrity, courage and honour, and the strong ensemble cast is uniformly good with the excentric, non-conformist characters inevitably standing out. Louise Jameson is particularly good as Blanche (apparently a showgirl, who may occasionally have been a prostitute as well) and, at the opposite end of the scale, Patricia Lawrence is a splendidly conflicted Dutch nun. Stephanie Cole carves out a career-defining performance as a fabulously grumpy doctor, and Elizabeth Chambers is so mesmerisingly awful as Mrs Van Mayer that I wonder if casting directors thought she really was like that and turned her down for everything else as a result.Jean Anderson is clearly having a lovely time playing titled nobility gone very naughty indeed, and it's nice to see tiny Anna Lindup (who I knew briefly at the Stoke Vic) playing a slowly enlightening factotum to a truly awful control freak. One of the refreshingly intelligent aspects of Series Two is that it's not just the Japanese that are horrible - witness the aforementioned prisoners' leader (Verna - Rosemary Martin), and the Malay interpreter, Miss Hassan (Josephine Welcome), a really vile piece of work.The first two episodes get every grain of worth from the location shooting in Singapore, thereafter the location is a sandpit in Dorset, where the internment camp set is built and Burt Kwouk presides as the impressive and (occasionally) humane Captain (later Major) Yamauchi.Series Two really is odd; it looks like it was written around the production schedule (rather than the other way round) ; there's a new set of buildings, with a whole episode of jungle marching to get there - presumably to emphasise the difference between the first set and the second, even though I suspect they're back in the same sandpit. Half the women are absent, which would seem to mean that half the previous cast weren't going to sign up for another six months of sand and shouting - Louise Jameson returning halfway through the series - maybe she'd been doing a play. None of this is symptomatic of a surfeit of ideas.The cast really do look malnourished by the end of Series Two - I don't know if there is a special make up technique to fake stick-thin arms, but my guess is that few of them ate very much. Would this be taking Method too far? Stephanie Beecham's lingering and progressively stinking death is a powerful delineation of our all being so much flesh that is apt to decompose if left unmaintained - and all for a night with her bloke in the jungle, I just hope it was a good one.The biggest let-down of Series Two is the last episode; they find the truth about the appalling Verna, but this is never allowed to move the story on, rather an American plane (that might as well have ‘Deus ex Machina’ painted on it, and seems a little early to be historically accurate) bombs the camp, when the camera is at the water hole, and we return to find horrible Miss Hassan dead, so there is never any proper moral reckoning, just Yamaouchi arriving in a jeep and shouting at everybody. Much of the episode has been boring – there’s been plenty of space to write something exciting. It ends with a series of freeze-frame pictures suggesting that the women (and the series) might have died there and then.From what little it had left in the way of potential and ideas, it's little wonder if that was the plan but, for whatever reason (perhaps, like that for the seventh series of Dr Who the BBC simply didn't have any better ideas and, when you consider the stuff of Howard's Way, Trainer, Triangle, there really was some dull telly in the 1980s) they went on to a third series.'The series needs a new direction' - you can almost hear the BBC mullet coming out with this, 'They're all brilliant characters - let's take them out of the prison camp - nobody's told that story!'One reason for that omission might be that this new territory is not very exciting. The Japanese surrender in Episode One, bringing the possibility that they might shoot all the prisoners (but they don't) and by Episode Two there's barely a pause to nearly beat the excrement out of Sato who, facing four vengeful women, cowers on the floor, and (of course) they don’t really hit him but the moral point is missed again. It is never made explicit that he was only brave when he had a gun to hide behind; the line ‘What’s that smell? Is it coming from Captain Sato’s trousers?’ would be very welcome.Then we remind those that remember Series Two how many former regulars have died (got theatre jobs), before we're on the bus back to Singapore and Raffles Hotel to discover how much mileage a group of POWs in a top notch hotel can provide.In the event, the answer is 'Not quite eight episodes worth'; while it's nice to see them all having a (mostly) nice time in Singapore (and quite a lot of 80s telly was about 'Isn't it nice to be rich?'), it's simply not as interesting as trying to outwit the Japs.Louise Jameson has gone (another play I suspect) and it sounds like Blanche's lines have all been handed over unaltered to a new character named Maggie (Elizabeth Mickery) - she's like Blance with a Yorkshire accent. She even ends up naming her baby 'Blanche'.Dotty gets beaten up and so goes home early; a new girl (Alice - a teen) has replaced Daisy - and nearly gets raped; Joss dies and that's sad, and they all get the boat home. The discovery that Metro Goldwyn's husband is still alive *is* funny, but so over-used. New ideas seem to be on ration. Goodness knows who thought it had the legs for a Christmas special.This last ties off what threads weren't [Should have been] left neatly spliced at the end of Series Three. The reunion idea is competently handled, but the story has barely moved on; MGM has found happiness with Robert Lang, Dotty finally gets it together with Jake, and Marion and Bea are still at odds over whether Yamauchi was a good man or a bad man ('By his works shall ye know him'), and then, because Tenko wouldn't be Tenko without some unreasonable oriental yelling threats at the mem-sahibs (and because the plot had quietly died on its feet at the thirty five minute point) we all go 'up country' to chez MGM in an expedition that's about as well-advised as a picnic at the Marabar Caves, where they all get shouted at, ruffled and buffeted by Communist freedom fighters.The device whereby Christina Campbell is unmasked as the baddie is realy very neat, but it's a sad end to that character that he last we see of her is as a Maoist automaton staring chillingly from behind her Communist spectacles in a Changi cell. Lazy and cynical storytelling.So what are we left with? Certainly no greater insight into the courage and ingenuity of people living under the thumb of right wing totalitarianism than was supplied by Colditz and Secret Army (and Enemy at the Door, for those that watched ITV). Get past the initial monstrous injustice of sinking a ship full of fleeing civilians and then imprisoning the survivors in hideous conditions, and lessons about human morality are neither thick on the ground nor particularly subtle. Tenko is very well acted, reasonably written, but at bottom it's the dim and uninventive sibling of the series mentioned above and, when faced with the possibility of real moral, ideological or political conflict, cops out without fail. No attempt to assess Yamauchi's true nature, none to examine the pressure that turn Dotty and Blanche into whores; in the end, in spite of this being the Feminist, non-racist, 1980s points of ideological judgement often come down to skin colour, with yellow being bad, white good, and British the best of all, tantantara and salute the flag. Obviously women are better than men, but if men are handsome, charming and sexy they will, however lacking their honesty, be infinitely preferred over the stuffy, if brave, loyal and honest simple soldier.For all that it pretends to better things, Tenko rarely raises itself above the level of a good soap opera and, all too often, the question of why someone does such wickedness is left with an implication relating to genetics. It's a great shame.After 31 episodes, I can imagine the Japanese embassy getting stroppy.

I read a town like alice,when I was about13and the series was quite similar. I actually bought it as a gift for my parents, who said they enjoyed it?

'Tenko' is one of the few complete television series that I can watch regularly (every year at least) and enjoy just as much every single time. I was in my mid teens when it first appeared on BBC1 and I loved it even then. The subject matter was quite unique at the time (and unusual even now) as was the fact that the series was comprised of a largely female ensemble cast. It covers the entire period from the fall of Singapore to the eventual release and rehabilitation of the women some three and a half years later. Along the way, the main cast move between three very different internment camps. Costume and make up are to be applauded as the cast convey, very convincingly, the physical changes over the years - sores and sunburn and gashes and scars and, most of all, the effects of near starvation. Perhaps by today's standards, the brutality of the Japanese captors is not as vivid as it might be but it is nevertheless portrayed convincingly and their are many truly shocking moments, especially some of the scenes of torture, eg days staked out in the sun with no food or water! Inevitably, in some respects, it might seem a little dated now. The cinematography shows its age (some strange mixes of film and video) and its all quite 'talky'. Long scenes of dialogue don't seen to be 'a thing' anymore and its a shame. Here, it gives the stories and characters a real chance to breathe.SPOILERS BELOW****The cast are generally excellent and it is wonderful to have some 30 hours to get to know most of these women - you really get to care about them. Of course, when it comes to favourite performances, such things are subjective. My own personal favourites were Stephanie Cole (who charts the journey of Beatrice Mason from cool, detached doctor to vulnerable, impulsive friend with such brilliance), Patricia Lawrence (whose starchy and unlikeable Dutch nun turns into one of the warmest characters in the series), Stephanie Beacham (bitchy socialite who quickly finds her heart) and perhaps especially Veronica Roberts! Roberts does amazing things with the character of Dorothy Bennett who starts off as a sheltered young wife and mother who loses both husband and baby, becomes a selfish and bitter bitch who sells herself to the guards for her own comforts, transforms again through unlikely friendships with Sister Ulrica and Blanche into a less selfish and more pragmatic woman and finally into a confident and successful businesswoman - its something of a tour de force!Arguably the main role is that of Marion Jefferson, portrayed by Ann Bell. Whilst I liked Bell very much - and its difficult not to like Marion - I do think that some of the other characters are more memorable. All the women have their moments even in the smaller roles and even though there were some actresses I was less fond of (Kate, Christina, Maggie) they all get at least a few moments in which to shine. Each series is quite distinct. The first charts the fall of Singapore through to Christmas in the first (very basic) camp. I suspect that this is the most true to life section - conditions are very poor and medical supplies are practically non-existent. We lose a couple of characters in series two as the women are moved to their next and more comfortable camp (I especially missed Nellie) but this series was my favourite. I suspect that it is less realistic in some respects as the plot moves into more soapy territory of mysteries and intrigues surrounding the new camp bitches Verna and Miss Hasan but, I have to admit, I loved it. The new characters are brilliant, not just Verna, Hasan and Marion's old school chum Lillian but smaller roles such as Daisy and Dr Trier, and this is where some of the best character growth comes into play. This is the series where Dorothy, Sister Ulrica, Mrs Van Meyer, Rose and even Marion herself become fully fleshed out people. Series 3 comes at the end of the war and deals largely with life back in the 'normal' world. Its good, although perhaps not as good as the first two series. Its a pity to lose Dorothy halfway through and I'm not too fond of 'Blanche replacement' Maggie. Its also a pity that all the new series 2 characters are dropped but the third series still has plenty of good stuff and perhaps this is where the likes of Ann Bell, Jean Anderson and Elizabeth Chambers have some of their best moments. The Re-Union is fun too - five years after the war ends - and its good to see what has become of the women. Perhaps the scene at Mrs Van Meyer's house (where the women are forced to relive some of their camp nightmares) seems a little forced in retrospect but obviously some threat and tension was needed within the programme and it all works well enough.I can't recommend 'Tenko' highly enough. Its really a splendid, landmark series and is (in my opinion) just as good today as it was back in the eighties.