GYRE TV Series logline: 

Enriched and whiplashed by a relentless gyre between East and West, an interweave of five intriguing people from four generations of a Chinese Australian family is driven by cross-generational echoes of war, rebellion, racism, love, loss and secrets – the known and unknown.

Pilot Logline: 

As the clouds of war loom over 1941 Hong Kong, the Lau family is drawn into the impending crisis: Lau Ang Way conducts business by his own rules, his formidable child-bride Ngan Ho Lan has become the family’s matriarch, and their Australian-born daughter Mae Ling Lau is torn between her love for a man and family loyalty — while, in the previous century, Jin Ho is forged by family violence and the Taiping Rebellion and Ang Way and Ho Lan negotiates a not so unusual marriage for the era and culture.

Season One Logline: 

WAR - the Taiping Rebellion, the Japanese invasion and occupation of Hong Kong, and when the family escape, Japan’s war in mainland China - shatters the lives of three generations.

SYNOPSIS:

GYRE — TV Series Synopsis Inspired by real people the writer has known and loved for 50+ years, Gyre's interweaves four generations of a Chinese-Australian family is a character-driven, cinematic epic that spans 19th- and 20th-century China and Australia.

PILOT Ep1: SONGLINES

Log line: As the clouds of war loom over 1941 Hong Kong, the Lau family is drawn into crisis: Ang Way conducts business by his own rules, his formidable child-bride Ho Lan has become the family’s matriarch, and their Australian-born daughter Mae is torn between love and family — while, in the previous century, Jin Ho is forged in the violence of his family and the Taiping Rebellion and Ang Way and Ho Lan negotiate a marriage.

SONGLINES opens with a montage of Lau Jin Ho facing family violence as a six-year-old in 1838, and Taiping rebels in 1853; his son Ang Way watches him respond to another tragedy in Ballarat in 1879; and an adult Ang Way (35) meeting Ngan Ho Lan (12) in Guangzhou in 1900. We then see the family arriving in Hong Kong in 1935, followed by a montage of the Japanese war advancing south from Peking, to Shangai, Nanking and Guangzhou.

In prewar Hong Kong, 1941, Mae (26) is torn between a nightlife of dance and love and family loyalties. Brother, Roy, likewise. Their father, Ang Way’s (71), runs his legal and illegal businesses, while Ho Lan (53), insists the family return to Australia.

The sounds of war links 1941 Hong Kong with 1900 Git Won where Lau Jin Ho (68) suffers PTSD brought on by the Boxer rebellion reminding him of the Taiping Rebellion. Finally in December 1941 Japan’s warplanes bomb Hong Kong's airport and Japanese soldiers break through the last line of defence. Mae’s brothers take Mae and her sister to hide in a shoe factoit to protect then from the depravities of Japanese soldiers. Mae's main fear is that war might mean she does not see Romeo (her love) again, and gazes at a photo of Romeo until Japan bombs the power station and the factory descends into darkness. All the women and children can hear are Japanese soldiers in the street outside yelling and shooting at people.

SEASON ONE

Logline: War (the Taiping Rebellion, the Japanese invasion and occupation of Hong Kong and war in mainland China) is the ultimate antagonist that shatters the lives of three generations of one Chinese Australian Family.

Following the pilot, seven written episodes track the family living under occupation in Hong Kong, their flight to Guilin, and Mae and her brothers opening a cafe serving Americans, Mae falling in love with a Flying Tiger, who is killed in action, her and her brothers going to prison on spy charges, their subsequent 300-km trek to escape the Japanese, intercut with Jin Ho's life as a rebellious adolescent and hard young man determined to become a highly skilled martial artist whilst travelling the roads of China with his wuxia master in an opera troupe. These threads are interwoven with Ang Way and Ho Lan’s early years living in Melbourne’s Chinatown, Ang Way's respect in the community and long absences, including a spell in prison for dealing in opium when it becomes illegal, leaving Ho Lan to have one child after another above his general store.

SEASON TWO

Logline: In Kunming, Mae falls in love for a third time to another American, while after the murder of his wuxia master, Jin Ho returns to his village, then escapes an unwanted marriage, taking a former convict ship to the Victorian gold fields; Ang Way disappears in post-war Hong Kong, forever, and Ho Lan and a pregnant Mae travel to Australia.

Season Two has three threads. Jin Ho is manipulated into an unwanted marriage and escapes his abusive mother and sullen wife in a former convict ship, which is shipwrecked off the coast of South Australia, causing Jin Ho having to trek 400 kilometres to the Victorian goldfields. This marks the start of the family’s East-West gyre, and is interwoven with Ang Way, Ho Lan and their children's life in Hong Kong (1925–32), where the family's wealth peaks and crumbles amid boycotts, the Great Strike, and Ang Way disappearing when chased by British police. Another thread is the family's life in Kunming in 1945, where Mae and three siblings work on the base for Hump pilots and Mae falls in love for a third time, before they are all sacked when the “spy” allegations resurface. Just before their journey back to Hong Kong in December 1945, Ho Lan tells Mae she is pregnant.

SEASON THREE

Logline: As a miner, Jin Ho finds racist violence, gold, friendship and love, but returns to Taishan. Thirteen years later he brings his 12 year son to Australia to broaden his horizons, and lets his son remain in Melbourne's Chinatown. His mixed-race great-grandson turns out to be an echo of him, likewise a rebel and adventurer, battling racism and nature's elements, but finding acceptance and gold as did Jin Ho, but as an abalone diver 1960s and 70s, in the among a bunch of hard living misfits on a pristine coast.

Season Three interweaves the lives of four generations. It begins with two generations of the family arriving in post-war Hong Kong, where a drug-addicted Ang Way stays with his eldest daughter, and Ho Lan goes to Australia to support Mae in having her baby in post-war, working-class Melbourne. Here, Ho Lan and Mae's siblings raise Mae’s son, Jim Baider, while a heartbroken Mae buries herself in work, and waits for her American lover. Mae's son is an echo of his sharp-tongued, hard-crusted great-grandfather, Jin Ho, but, as a man, instead of gold, he mines abalone on a pristine coast and ocean, and has a young Australian nymph fall in love with him. Decades later, mother and son finally discover what happened to his father. The truth explodes Mae's secrets and lies, and creates a bridge between estranged mother and son, thus breaking an inter-generational pattern of mother-child estrangement.

GYRE