John Bach

This docu-drama dives beneath the sensational headlines to unravel the truth about a murder case that rocked New Zealand and catapulted teenage dominatrix Renee Chignell and cricket umpire Peter Plumley Walker into the national consciousness.

Judgment Tavern tells the story of Lucia, a young girl carrying her father's living head as they search for his fleeing body. On a cold dark night, they take shelter in a small village tavern - where a mysterious stranger with unfinished business is waiting.

Adapted from Renee's 1995 novel Does This Make Sense to You?, the TV movie lays bare the pain caused by forced adoptions inflicted on unwed and teenage mothers in 1950s and 60s Aotearoa

New Zealand. 1867. The rugged desolate coast of Taranaki. Three children washed ashore from a shipwreck. No food, no shelter.... no adults. Follow along as they search for their parents.

15-year-old Davie Balfour is poised to receive a vast inheritance when he's lured onto a cargo ship, knocked unconscious, and kidnapped by his malevolent uncle Ebenezer, who devises a scheme to sell him into slavery. But Davie's unforeseen rescue at the hands of a Scottish rogue, Alan Breck, with them racing across the Scottish moors, with English bounty hunters in hot pursuit.

15-year-old Davie Balfour is poised to receive a vast inheritance when he's lured onto a cargo ship, knocked unconscious, and kidnapped by his malevolent uncle Ebenezer, who devises a scheme to sell him into slavery. But Davie's unforeseen rescue at the hands of a Scottish rogue, Alan Breck, leaves them racing across the Scottish moors, with English bounty hunters in hot pursuit.

Hercules is a 2005 RHI Entertainment television miniseries, chronicling the life of the legendary Greek hero, Heracles, called Hercules in this series. It is most often aired on television as a two-part miniseries: the first part documents his early life in Tiryns and his desire and marriage to the lady Megara; the second part follows the more widely-recognised part of his life, in seeking redemption for the madness-induced murder of his family. The series incorporates Hercules's murder of his family—usually not included in modern interpretations of the character—and includes five of his twelve labors from Greek mythology. The series alters some of the elements of the myths including placing the giant Antaeus as his father while in Greek myths his father was the king of the gods, Zeus.

The story of the senior-level preparations for the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944 from the time of Dwight D. Eisenhower's appointment as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, to the establishment of the beachhead in Normandy.

When a full-scale war is engaged by the evil Scarran Empire, the Peacekeeper Alliance has but one hope: reassemble human astronaut John Crichton, once sucked into the Peacekeeper galaxy through a wormhole. Crichton's task: Get the entire Peacekeeper race to safety before the last war of an era brings and end to the universe.

The culmination of nearly 10 years' work and conclusion to Peter Jackson's epic trilogy based on the timeless J.R.R. Tolkien classic, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" presents the final confrontation between the forces of good and evil fighting for control of the future of Middle-earth. Hobbits Frodo and Sam reach Mordor in their quest to destroy the `one ring', while Aragorn leads the forces of good against Sauron's evil army at the stone city of Minas Tirith.

The Fellowship is scattered. Some brace hopelessly for war against the ancient evil of Sauron. Others must contend with the treachery of the wizard Saruman. Only Frodo and Sam are left to take the One Ring, ruler of the accursed Rings of Power, to be destroyed in Mordor, the dark realm where Sauron is supreme.

On January 18th, 1977, a crowded commuter train heading for Sydney, came off the track and struck the pillars of an overhead road bridge, crushing part of the train and killing 83 passengers and injuring more than 200 others. This story follows the coronial inquiry into the crash with flash-backs to the main story, and the efforts of the rescuers to free the injured victims.

Duggan was a TVNZ police drama from 1997, featuring New Zealand actor John Bach as Detective Inspector John Duggan and Fiona Mogridge as Ruth Duggan. Unlike other New Zealand police drama series, Duggan was produced as a series of one-off programmes, akin to British crime series of the time such as Inspector Morse and Midsomer Murders. In all, 13 episodes were made between 1997 and 1999.

The year is 1886, when New England's fishing harbours are the scene for a "creature of unknown origin" destroying ships at sea. It is the job of Professor Pierre Aronnax, a marine expert, and Ned Land, the iron willed sailor, to learn the truth of the "monster" roaming the seas. The great novelist, Jules Verne, described this perilous journey to the darkest depths of the sea with Captain Nemo aboard the Nautilus.

Mysterious Island is a Canadian television series based on Jules Verne's novel L'Île mystérieuse. It ran for one season in 1995. The beginning of the series is much as in the novel. A group of refugees attempting to escape the American Civil War in a balloon wind up stranded on a remote Pacific island, where they are able to improvise a comfortable living for themselves while they wait for a passing ship. As time passes, they become suspicious that some unseen force is watching and directing their movements. The main difference between the protagonists of the series and those of the novel is the addition of a female character, the wife of Pencroft. The unseen watcher, Captain Nemo, is more active and less benevolent than in the novel. Able to monitor the island through steampunk-style closed-circuit television and other advanced devices, he treats the castaways as human laboratory specimens, influencing their environment to test their behaviour under stressful conditions. As the series progresses, his tests become more extreme as their continued co-operation threatens his preferred thesis that all humans are, at base, selfish and untrustworthy. In the series finale, Nemo apparently succeeds in breaking up the group; this proves to be a ruse by the protagonists, who are now certain of Nemo's existence. After they penetrate his hideaway, Nemo admits that the 'experiment' is ruined, and offers to return the castaways to civilisation in his submarine. In a final twist, he puts out to sea without them, apparently leaving them alone on the island, without his influence for good or ill.

In 1943, U.S. marines are stationed near Wellington. One of them is murdered by the boss of the Hotel Workers Union, who is sitting pretty, exempt from military service and living it up on black market profits. Girls under the control of the union - of whom the victim's fiancee, Rose, is one - give sexual favours to the Americans, in return for information. The marine assigned to investigate the murder, tries to find Rose through a public health nurse who traces VD infections. However they discover there it more going on than they realized, involving a conspiracy amongst the Union, the government and the U.S. military.

High court judge Holly McPhee devises blueprints for criminal operations and offers them for sale to the crime world. Her scrupulous operation falls apart when she takes part in a multi-million dollar bank robbery and becomes an accessory to murder.

True story of Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone, inspired by his mother.

Former Welsh rugby hero Bleddyn Morgan has his life in New Zealand interrupted by a deathbed confession that leads to a replay of a controversial 1966 All Blacks/Wales rugby match - with the original teams. The now old men pull on their jerseys one more time while Morgan deals with his past on his return home. (from IMDB)

On an obscure Pacific Island just north of Australia, the Japanese Empire has operated a prisoner of war camp for Australian soldiers. At the close of World War II, the liberated POWs tell a gruesome tale of mass executions of over eight hundred persons as well as torture style killings of downed Australian airmen. In an attempt to bring those responsible to justice, the Australian Army establishes a War Crimes Tribunal to pass judgement on the Japanese men and officers who ran the Ambon camp. In an added twist, a high ranking Japanese admiral is implicated, and politics become involoved with justice as American authorities in Japan lobby for the Admiral's release. Written by Anthony Hughes

A young woman investigates the death of her mother, who drowned when her daughter was still a baby. The question is: was it murder, suicide or merely an accident?

Based on a true story, The Heroes follows one of the most extraordinary and heroic exploits of World War II. After months of rigorous training in the north of Australia, a team of 14 men, most barely out of their teens, set sail from Cairns on board a leaky old fishing boat called 'The Krait'. Their mission, code-named Operation Jaywick, became a tense voyage through thousands of kilometres of Japanese held territory to launch a daring attack on Singapore Harbour. The raid is a success but within sight of safety they encounter a Japanese destroyer, and all prepare to die rather than be taken prisoner.

A murderous black comedy set in the 1960's. Sam (McCauley) and his small band of hard-drinking and eccentric friends are having a night of it when a drunk truck driver, Jack (Bach), attacks Sam's Maori wife Sue (O'Brien). In the struggle, Sam and friends end up killing Jack. None of them regrets this, but it has been observed by Miriam (Gruar) who decides to blackmail Sam. Jack's brother Joe (Napier) comes looking for revenge and ends up being killed by Basil (Spence). Their jobs at the freezer works are terminated, and Basil has his own idea about how to get out of their troubles.

A Polynesian street-kid and a much older middle-class housewife are both incarcerated in the same mental hospital - she for attempted suicide and he for habitual crime. A friendship grows between them such that she offers him a place to stay upon his release. However, difficulties arise with his continued criminal activities and dependence on her for support - then his gang moves in with them. The film is based upon Sue McCauley's award winning autobiographical novel.

Chilling story of a farmhand who realizes his popular boss has been committing incest with his daughter for years.

In New Zealand in the 1860s the native Maori people fought the British colonials to keep the land guaranteed to them by treaty. The warrior Te Wheke fights for the British until betrayal leads him to seek utu (revenge). The settler Williamson in turn seeks revenge after Te Wheke attacks his homestead. Meanwhile Wiremu, an officer for the British, seems to think that resistance is futile.

Amid the high country of the North Island interior, wild horse roam and breed. With the trees gone, Dan Mitchell and the Sullivan brothers, turn to the wild horses as a source of income. With rope and snare - and the help of an experienced horse catching team - Sam and Sara's example, the rough ex-loggers learn to respect a delicate balance between the wild horses and their catchers. The best stallions are left to breed and their riding horses are retired back into the wild herds.

Anthropologist Max Scarry mysteriously disappears while doing excavation/research of a lost New Zealand tribe on a remote island. His wife and his twin brother Edward are clueless as to what could have happened, a situation complicated by their city's police suspecting that one of the brothers murdered a local prostitute who was found with a strange tribal charm on her body matching one found in Max's abandoned hut. What most certainly isn't helping matters is the strange behavior of Max's daughter as she seems to have visions beyond possibility, warnings of a supernatural threat and her uncle's fate - and she's the film's narrator, to boot. Edward decides to go to the island to find out exactly what happened, but the deeper he goes into the mystery the more perilous and unknowable his world becomes, leading towards a shocking fate that raises more questions than it answers. (cont. http://view-from-the-paperhouse.blogspot.de/2014/10/the-threat-of-ancient-echoes-lost-tribe.html)

Close to Home is a New Zealand television soap opera which ran on Television One from 1975 to 1983. Set in a suburb of Wellington, it originally revolved around the trials and tribulations of the Hearte family. Most of the Hearte children were written out of the show within its first two years. The older members of the Hearte family remained through most of the show's run and later storylines revolved around their interactions with neighbours and friends. A high point of the series occurred in 1982 with the wedding of Gayle and Gavin. Rehearsals took place in a local community hall in Avalon, and “Close to Home” was mostly shot in the largest NZBC TV studio, No 8, at Avalon Studios, Avalon, Lower Hutt, which had sets round the studio of rooms in various characters’ houses plus the bar of the local hotel. It was criticised for the number of scenes set in the bar, but that was the only place apart from private homes that scenes could be set in without going on location, which was infrequent. The show featured John Bach, who went on to have his own TV seris, Duggan, and appear in various films. Jennifer Ward-Lealand appeared as a school friend of Gayle's after Fiona Lovatt's contract expired. Jim Moriarty played a school teacher. Other cast members included Pat Evison, Ginette MacDonald, and, in a special appearance, The Kokatahi Band.

A scientist in New Zealand has a secret lab where experiments are performed on humans. When he is assassinated, opposing forces rush to his hideaway to suppress or expose his secrets.