MPAA-15+ | 4 episodes | DVD | Oct. 13, 2021
In the Australian Goldfields of Ballarat, racism against Chinese immigrants is rife. Bloody riots are not uncommon, but the colonial authorities prefer to use punitive taxation to keep them down.
The shrewd headman of the Chinese prospecting community tries to mount a campaign against a newly proposed round of taxes, but he will be distracted by a more pressing problem. The discovery of a dead white woman on the outskirts of the Chinese camp could potentially unleash a new round of violence in creator Peter Cox’s four-part series, “New Gold Mountain,” which is now available on DVD.
Leung Wei Shing is smart, but maybe too slippery for his own good. He has been steadily skimming a modest take off the top of the camp’s revenue, with the reluctant help of his brother, Leung Wei Sun, who serves as their bookkeeper.
This is risky business, because the camp is sponsored by “The Brotherhood,” a Mainland Chinese secret society that seems to have full-blown Triad-style enforcement practices.
Leung faces a perfect storm of peril when Zhang Li arrives from the Brotherhood for a surprise inspection just when the body of Annie Thomas is discovered. The headman has her buried away from the Chinese camp, but the eventual unearthing of the body still brings unwanted scrutiny. It turns out that she may have been romantically involved with someone living in the Brotherhood camp.
Inconveniently, widowed Belle Roberts, who now owns “The Ballarat Times,” latches onto the story, heedless of the potential consequences. Yet, she sees herself as a champion of the Chinese community, because she plans to launch a new Chinese-language edition.
Plenty of Flaws and Corruption
Cox and his co-writers created a really gritty historical that addresses issues of racism and immigration without any of the stereotypical good guys or bad guys. Arguably, everyone is corrupt to some extent in “New Gold Mountain,” except maybe Patrick Thomas, but he certainly has plenty of character faults.
It can’t quite be labeled a mystery either, because it is really about Leung’s attempts to cover-up multiple crimes, including his own. However, his scheming is quite entertaining to watch.
Indeed, Leung Wei Shing is a richly complex character. Yoson An embraces his contradictions, bringing out all sides of the grafter with a martyr complex. He also shows a flair for the verbal sparring matches Leung is drawn into with his foils, Roberts and Zhang Li, played by Alyssa Sutherland and Mabel Li, respectively.
Li is particularly intriguing as the Brotherhood’s fixer, a decidedly unconventional role for a woman during that era. Li portrays her namesake with toughness, while humanizing her.
Brutal Realities
Cox and company certainly depict the brutal rough-and-tumble realities of life in an Australian frontier town. Life is cheap, especially for the Chinese and aboriginal characters, but the series never wallows in grim miserabilism.Instead, the intrigue carries the show along. Entirely helmed by director Corrie Chen, “New Gold Mountain” is nicely paced and has a consistent tone. This might be a story of the 1850s, but the crooked government officials and self-serving community “organizers” are just as prevalent in today’s world.
“New Gold Mountain” is very definitely a self-contained narrative, which makes a refreshing change from recent streaming series that deliberately leave major questions unresolved, in hopes of establishing a franchise.
Still, it presumably would not be impossible for “The Ballarat Times” to report on more stories in the future, if “New Gold Mountain” builds an audience.
It is definitely worthy of attention from fans of revisionist westerns and Colonial Australian historical dramas, thanks to the sharp writing and Yoson’s even sharper lead performance.
Highly recommended, “New Gold Mountain” is now available on DVD (and streams on AMC+).
