Both are extremely resourceful, conflicted and move between different worlds while confronting the ghosts of their own respective pasts in remote Australia. Yoson An’s smouldering portrayal of Wei Shing resembles Jay Swan’s character in Mystery Road (2018–). Other Australian colonial stories have been told in John Hillcoat’s The Proposition (2005) and Jennifer Kent’s recent The Nightingale (2018). On closer viewing, the series also shares a watermark with the New Zealand made Illustrious Energy (1988), directed by Leon Narbey, which also explored the goldfields experience from a Chinese perspective. Like Deadwood, New Gold Mountain explores shifting alliances in the search for gold. Similar complex, intertwined plots of shifting alliances and a mutual desire to win money run through New Gold Mountain. The inherent racism of frontier life is apparent, as is the mutual respect the two men have for each other as they seek to benefit from nefarious business dealings. Much of Deadwood centres on the business dealings between the Chinese headman, Mr Wu, and the corrupt saloon owner and town powerbroker, Al Swearengen. New Gold Mountain evocatively captures this moment.įriday essay: the story of Fook Shing, colonial Victoria's Chinese detectiveĪustralian goldfields life has been shown on television before, notably Rush, the Victorian gold rush era drama from the 1970s.īut the obvious cultural point of reference is Deadwood (2004-06), David Milch’s multi-layered historical narrative based on the 1850s gold-rush town in the Black Hills Indian Cession, a region that subsequently became South Dakota. The Chinese miners and their Indigenous and European counterparts were all coming to terms with a landscape broken by mining and colonised by a disparate society coming to terms with its own experiences and opportunities. SBSĬhen explores this shock in a moment of brief magical realism with Wei Shing’s encounters with a kangaroo.
The hot and dusty goldfields were very different from the Chinese ports – but cultural traditions lived on. The flora and fauna – literally everything – was so different to home. You can imagine how startled recent arrivals from the bustling South China trading ports of Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macau must have been on disembarkation. The other stars of the series are the distinctive former mining landscapes and Sovereign Hill providing the visual backdrops for the 1850s goldfields society. Sometimes there is brutal friendship, as when Wei Shing and the Chinese protector, Standish (Dan Spielman), finally establish exactly where they stand with each other.ĭirector Corrie Chen and creator Peter Cox pull no punches while maintaining a compelling murder mystery and this lively ensemble offers a nuanced reading of the Australian goldfields experience, telling a mature and ambiguous account of the frontier. But there is also cooperation, as Wei Shing and Belle unite to solve the murder. On one hand, relations between key characters and groups (primarily between the Chinese and Europeans) are typified by racism and hostility. New Gold Mountain shows the complexity of relationships on the gold fields. Here, Cheung Lei (Mabel Li) brings into play the connections, allegiances and complexities between Chinese gold seekers in the Australian colonies and their backers in China. These regional associations and “brotherhoods”, as they are referred to in the series, were labour recruiting mechanisms similar to the one Wei Shing runs at this Chinese camp. A Chinese Australian taleĬhinese migration patterns to Australia were largely based on regional associations, particularly in the localities of Toi Shan, Sze Yup and Sam Yup in Guangdong, Southern China.
In their own ways, each character is caught between different cultures, friendships and allegiances in the rapidly forming goldfields frontier society on the far side of the world.
The narrative is widened to include Belle Roberts (Alyssa Sutherland), the English widow turned newspaper proprietor Hattie (Leonie Whyman), the resilient Indigenous woman trying to get by and Patrick Thomas (Christopher James Baker), the troubled Irish miner whose wife’s disappearance drives the plot.
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