The Wild Duck

Ibsen's play, adapted to Australia, concerns a couple forced to answer for their daughter's legitimacy.

Consul Werle holds a reception in honour of the homecoming of his son Gregers. At the reception, Gregers meets his childhood friend, Hjalmar Ekdal, who is married to Gina, a former maid of the Werle family. Hjalmar is unaware that Werle had an affair with Gina and that their 14-year-old daughter Hedwig is not his child. Gregers moves in with the Ekdals with the intention of allowing unsuspecting Hjalmar and his family to share in the "happiness of truth". Hedwig is entirely devoted to a wild duck, which lives on a pond outside their house. When Hjalmar learns the truth about his daughter, he wants to leave his family. Gregers advises Hedwig to kill the wild duck so that her father, impressed by this sacrifice, will return home. On the following day, Hedwig's birthday, she doesn't shoot the duck, but shoots herself instead.

A devestating, yet bracing look at a family whose proximity to each other belies the decay of their relationships, The Wild Duck is just as modern today as it was when first staged. When Gregors Werle comes to stay with the Ekdals, his idealist nature refuses to tolerate the dreamworld of lies the family is living. However, in his bid to force the Ekdals to see the truth, the skeletons he unearths destroy the family that he wanted to redeem.

Father and son are on a hunting trip. Hunting plans take a new turn when dad is bitten by a wild duck.

Since both parents have passed on, only Hedvig and her older siblings live in the once-splendid, now-derelict family mansion. Hedvig, at 17 the family’s youngest member, spends her days mainly taking care of a wild duck injured by a neighbour. The other two run a photographic studio in a nearby town that doesn’t seem to feel any need for a business like this. Enter the oldest of the siblings, Karin, who left the house years ago and returns solely to sell the estate. Whatever thinnest of threads held the four children together now snaps.

A loving family's world is shattered by an old friend's arrival, carrying a dark secret.

The play opens in the study at Hakon Werle's house during a dinner party for the return of Werle's son, Gregers, from the Hoidal mines. Gregers has not come home for fifteen years. Old Ekdal appears before two servants, begging to be let into the office. Ekdal was an army officer and partner to Werle until a forestry scandal sent him to prison over some scandal. He now works as one of Werle's copyists.

The action takes place in the Bosnian countryside during 1970s. It is a web of time distance, customs, a modest but happy life, neighborly attitude and care, as well as dramatic plot that culminates in the second half of the film.

Hans Wild Duck Gens, an old school industrial spy becomes suicidally jealous when the firm brings in a German performance artist who becomes not only the top agent, but also replaces him in his girlfriend Monika's affections.

The four-member con group, including the intellectual boss Nobukichi Ishiguro (Masayuki Mori), who is called an "aristocrat con man" for his elegant appearance; the amorous Kyuhei Maruki (Tadao Takashima); the inventive Yosuke Mori (Hideo Sunatsuka); and the amorous Mami (Mako Midori), set one bizarre trap after another in their quest for the perfect crime in this wry crime comedy.

The family happiness of the Ekdahls is driven towards a tragic disintegration.