Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities

Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities

Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities is a 13-part Australian television mini-series loosely based on real events that stemmed from the marijuana trade centred around the New South Wales town of Griffith. The timeline of the series is the years between 1976 and 1987. Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities...

is a thirteen-part Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n television mini-series covering the rise and fall of the Mr. Asia drug syndicate between 1976 and 1987. This second series in the Underbelly franchise

Underbelly (series)

Underbelly is an Australian television true crime-drama which originally broadcast on the Nine Network. Each series contains 13 episodes and is based on real-life events including the Melbourne gangland killings between 1995-2004, the Griffith drug trade between 1976-1987, and the Kings Cross scene...

, based on real events documented by Age

The Age

The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...

journalists, John Silvester

John Silvester

John Silvester is an Australian journalist and crime writer. He has written for major Melbourne based newspapers such as The Age, the Sunday Herald Sun and others. Silvester has also co-written a number of bestselling books with Andrew Rule, based on crime in Melbourne. Some of their works formed...

 and Andrew Rule, also depicts the Great Bookie Robbery

Great Bookie Robbery

The Great Bookie Robbery was a crime committed in Melbourne, Australia on 21 April 1976.A well-organized gang of six stole between $6 million and $12 million from the Victoria Club, which was located on the second floor of a building in Queen Street...

 and the burgeoning corruption within the New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

 police. (The latter storyline is continued in Underbelly: The Golden Mile

Underbelly: The Golden Mile

Underbelly: The Golden Mile is a 13-part Australian television mini-series loosely based on real events that stemmed from the nightclub scene of the Sydney suburb of Kings Cross. The timeline of the series is the years between 1988 and 1999. it primarily depicts the running of Kings Cross and the...

.) A Tale of Two Cities began screening on 9 February, 2009 on the Nine Network

Nine Network

The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...

, with the first two episodes broadcast back-to-back as a telemovie. The series centres on the partnership between Robert "Aussie Bob" Trimbole

Robert Trimbole

Robert Trimbole was an Australian businessman, drug baron and organised crime boss whose alleged involvement in the disappearance of anti-marijuana campaigner Donald Mackay and involvement in drug trafficking in the Griffith, New South Wales area, led to a royal commission, a Coroner's inquest and...

 and Terry Clark, who is often mistakenly referred to as "Mr. Asia", and their illicit activities, conducted mainly in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 and Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

. A Tale of Two Cities, produced in conjunction with Screen Australia

Screen Australia

Screen Australia is the Federal Government’s key funding body for the Australian screen production industry. Its functions are to support and promote the development of a highly creative, innovative and commercially sustainable industry....

, explicitly links itself to the original series

Underbelly (TV series)

Underbelly is a 13-part Australian television mini-series that retells the real events of the 1995–2004 gangland war in Melbourne, and is the first series in the larger Underbelly Franchise. It depicts the key players in Melbourne's criminal underworld, including the Carlton Crew and their rival,...

 by featuring a young Alphonse Gangitano

Alphonse Gangitano

Alphonse John Gangitano was an Italian Australian criminal from Templestowe, a suburb of Melbourne. Nicknamed the "Black Prince of Lygon Street", Gangitano was the face of an organisation known as the Carlton Crew, and a close associate of convicted criminals Graham Kinniburgh, Mick Gatto and...

 and the narrating character's mother (Jacqui James and Liz Cruickshank, respectively). Following the success of the second series, the Nine Network commissioned a third - The Golden Mile, which was then followed by Underbelly: Razor

Underbelly: Razor

Underbelly: Razor is a 13-part Australian television mini-series detailing real events that occurred in Sydney between 1927 and 1936. The series depicts the "razor gangs" who controlled the city's underworld during the era and the violent war between the two "vice queen" powers, Tilly Devine and...

.

In 2011, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

's TV3

TV3 (New Zealand)

TV3 is a New Zealand commercial television network, owned by MediaWorks New Zealand. Launched on 26 November 1989, the first private television network in New Zealand...

 produced its own version of the Underbelly franchise, Land of the Long Green Cloud. The story, noted as a prequel

Prequel

A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...

 to A Tale of Two Cities, centres on the 'real' "Mr. Asia", Marty Johnstone

Marty Johnstone

Christopher Martin "Marty" Johnstone was a New Zealand drug trafficker. The former Takapuna Grammar pupil was dubbed "Mr Asia" by the Auckland Star newspaper in August 1978 in a series of articles by Pat Booth.-Murder:...

, and his doomed partnership with Terry Clark between the years 1972 and 1980. The six-part mini-series, scripted by John Banas and produced in conjunction with New Zealand On Air, began screening on 17 August, 2011. Of note, A Tale of Two Cities was previously promoted in New Zealand as Underbelly: The Mr. Asia Story.

Episodes

#	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date