Brokedown Palace (1999) on Netflix
PG-1319991h 40mDramaMysteryThriller
Alice Marano and Darlene Davis tell Darlene's father they are Hawaii-bound, then fly to Thailand. There they meet Nick Parks, an Australian who offers them a trip to Hong Kong.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.4/1025,318 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes31%
Trailer
Plot summary
Alice Marano and Darlene Davis have been close since childhood and have just graduated from high school. A summer in Hawaii is the plan, until word of Bangkok changes their minds, and they set off without giving their families the real itinerary. Thailand is fun, though their six-dollar room is not, and a swim at a luxury hotel turns uneasy when the drinks bill arrives. Nick Parks, an Australian software consultant, steps in. Darlene is drawn to him, and he cannot decide which of the two women he wants. He praises Hong Kong and offers to swap his first-class seat for three in economy. Hurrying to make the flight, they are detained by police, who find heroin in one of their bags. Both say the drugs are not theirs.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Brokedown Palace (1999)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The prison scenes were shot inside a real Manila mental asylum for women, split by a makeshift wall from actual patients housed on the other side, some of whom, according to co-star Amanda de Cadenet, threw feces over the wall in protest.
- After Danes made further comments to Premiere magazine, saying Manila "just smelled like cockroaches" and that "there's no sewage system and the people do not have anything", Atienza and council members voted for a resolution to ban Danes and her films in Manila, a ban which has not been lifted.
- During filming in Manila, Claire Danes told Vogue in 1998 that the city was 'ghastly and weird,' prompting Manila city council member Kim Atienza to publicly dismiss the remark as youthful carelessness.
- Producer Adam Fields based the story on real interviews he conducted with young American women serving life sentences in a Thai prison for drug offenses, along with U.S. embassy and Drug Enforcement Agency officials in Bangkok.
- The film's title comes from a Grateful Dead song written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter for the band's 1970 album American Beauty.
