John Laing is a director, producer, editor and writer from New Zealand. He directed his first feature film Beyond Reasonable Doubt in 1980. He has worked in both television and movies in New Zealand as well as in the United Kingdom and Canada.
Xena is an infamous warrior on a quest to seek redemption for her past sins against the innocent. Accompanied by her comrade-in-arms Gabrielle, the campy couple use their formidable fighting skills to help those who are unable to defend themselves.
Release Date1995-09-04
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Episode Count3
Vote Count1346
The legendary son of Zeus journeys across the earth fighting monsters and helping people.
Release Date1995-01-29
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Episode Count4
Vote Count566
A team of teenagers with attitude are recruited to save Angel Grove from the evil witch, Rita Repulsa, and later, Lord Zedd, Emperor of all he sees, and their horde of monsters.
Release Date1993-08-28
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Episode Count1
Vote Count813
Safe House is the story of a struggle for survival in an unfamiliar and threatening world, based on the true life experience of a woman in the early days of the witness protection programme in New Zealand. TV Movie
Release Date2012-06-09
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Vote Count3
A young hitchhiker introduces characters who are about to experience a frightening and sometimes supernatural incident of some kind in this moody anthology series.
Release Date1983-11-23
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Episode Count5
Vote Count32
Renee and Valerie, a couple at a cross roads in their relationship, leave the city to spend the week at a remote cabin with friends. But when they arrive, their friends are nowhere to be found. As they stumble through their relationship woes, they discover they are being hunted by a group of militant extremists who are determined to exterminate them.
Release Date2021-05-21
DepartmentProduction
JobExecutive Producer
Vote Count67
A teenage girl is terrorized when she spends two nights alone on a remote island as part of her camp counselor initiation.
Release Date2013-08-29
DepartmentProduction
JobExecutive Producer
Vote Count35
Tormented by a hidden family curse, Heather lives in seclusion on the outskirts of a small town. When she falls for the rebellious Jonny, their connection threatens to unravel Heather's suppressed desires, tempting her to unleash the animal within.
Release Date2023-09-08
DepartmentProduction
JobExecutive Producer
Vote Count27
A once-celebrated kid detective, now 31, continues to solve the same trivial mysteries between hangovers and bouts of self-pity. Until a naive client brings him his first 'adult' case, to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend.
Release Date2020-10-16
DepartmentProduction
JobExecutive Producer
Vote Count453
A caustically funny account of addict monomania.
Release Date2000-07-29
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
A Polynesian street-kid and a much older middle-class housewife are both incarcerated in the same mental hospital - she for attempted suicide and he for habitual crime. A friendship grows between them such that she offers him a place to stay upon his release. However, difficulties arise with his continued criminal activities and dependence on her for support - then his gang moves in with them. The film is based upon Sue McCauley's award winning autobiographical novel.
Release Date1984-10-01
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Vote Count2
It is the story of an average, popular American teenager named Wendy Wu who discovers that in order to win the coveted crown she must first learn the way of the warrior. Wendy Wu has a one track mind, and that track leads directly to the title of homecoming queen -- no unscheduled stops, and no unnecessary detours. When a mysterious Chinese monk named Shen arrives to mold Wendy into a fearless kung fu warrior, however, her royal aspirations suddenly jump the track as she desperately attempts to juggle her boyfriend, her homework, and of course, the fierce competition to become homecoming queen. Now, as Wendy begins to train her mind, body, and spirit in the ancient tradition of the martial arts and her inner warrior gradually begins to emerge, the girl who once obsessed over popularity finally begins to put that popularity into perspective as she gradually realizes what truly matters in life.
Release Date2006-06-16
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Vote Count434
In 1942 Wellington, Daisy Edwards, 16 and pregnant, relies totally on her just-wed husband, Ed, who is little older than she. Ed is suddenly drafted into the army and is to be sent overseas to battle while Daisy is sent to her father in Auckland. When Ed's leave is cancelled at the last minute he takes the dangerous decision to go absent without leave to be with Daisy on her journey home. As a deserter, Ed is hunted, captured and imprisoned. Life inside is bad enought without the worry of what is going on outside. The film is based upon a true story.
Release Date1993-02-20
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Vote Count1
Cody’s investigation of an art theft leads him to Claudia who works at an art gallery where the certificate of the stolen painting is held. His judgement may be clouded when he discovers the federal police suspect Claudia of smuggling the paintings.
Release Date1994-06-11
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Two mother-daughter duos must contend with their grief and complicated relationships with one another when the person who connects them dies.
Release Date2020-02-14
DepartmentProduction
JobExecutive Producer
Vote Count36
A majestic tale of drama, love, mystery and the clashing of cultures in early 1800's New Zealand.
Release Date1999-06-15
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Anthropologist Max Scarry mysteriously disappears while doing excavation/research of a lost New Zealand tribe on a remote island. His wife and his twin brother Edward are clueless as to what could have happened, a situation complicated by their city's police suspecting that one of the brothers murdered a local prostitute who was found with a strange tribal charm on her body matching one found in Max's abandoned hut. What most certainly isn't helping matters is the strange behavior of Max's daughter as she seems to have visions beyond possibility, warnings of a supernatural threat and her uncle's fate - and she's the film's narrator, to boot. Edward decides to go to the island to find out exactly what happened, but the deeper he goes into the mystery the more perilous and unknowable his world becomes, leading towards a shocking fate that raises more questions than it answers. (cont. http://view-from-the-paperhouse.blogspot.de/2014/10/the-threat-of-ancient-echoes-lost-tribe.html)
Release Date1983-10-01
DepartmentWriting
JobWriter
Vote Count5
Three orphaned boys - O'Malley, Rossi and Moir - become blood brothers. When they grow up, they plot revenge on the crooks who got away with shooting O'Malley's father. The crooks are doing very nicely importing heroin and laundering money. The boys begin by killing one of the crooks, stealing his indentification and cleaning out the guy's Swiss bank account. But their revenge does not stop here... And the American end of the operation is getting very curious.
Release Date1985-01-01
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Vote Count1
Classic saga of the merchant and his family shipwrecked on a South Seas island. This adaptation of the Johann David Wyss tale was one of the Pax network's initial offerings.
Release Date1998-09-01
DepartmentCreator
JobCreator
Vote Count8
In 1989 the trimaran Rose Noelle set sail from Picton, New Zealand, bound for Tonga with four crew. After a freak wave capsized the yacht, they drifted for 119 days before landing on Great Barrier Island.
Release Date2016-03-02
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Vote Count130
Families are dying and reporter Trish (Kelly McGillis) finds herself reporting on a serial killing spree. After her daughter Lisa's (Kate Elliott) best friends are killed, she fears that her family may be on the killers list. Sheriff Webster (Barry Corbin) is not listening to her concerns, which leads Trish to wonder is he or his deputy might be involved. Then Lisa, her boyfriend Ben and her sister Amy receive threats.
Release Date2001-01-01
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Vote Count5
In 1997, Osama bin Laden declared war on the USA and Pulitzer Prize winning CNN correspondent Peter Arnett embarked on a mission to locate and interview him. A War Story follows the dramatic events leading up to the interview and the Kiwi journalist's horror on 9/11, as he recalled bin Laden's veiled threats.
Release Date2018-10-01
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
When office temp Jane discovers that Rose, the PA she is replacing, died under mysterious circumstances, she joins forces with Rose's best friend Linda to get justice for Rose. Along the way, they find others who need their help, victims of fraud, theft and injustice, and soon Jane, Linda - and a team of unlikely co-workers - are taking on the corporate bullies, fighting for justice and using their unique powers for good.
Release Date2013-02-04
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Episode Count2
Vote Count7
An astrophysicist, after making an extraterrestrial discovery, is forced to flee with his family from their home and is chased through the countryside by an anonymous pursuer.
DepartmentProduction
JobExecutive Producer
After the untimely death of his mother, a grieving teen befriends his charismatic but troubled neighbor, only to become ensnared in a world of addiction and violence as the opioid epidemic takes hold of his small town.
Release Date2021-01-04
DepartmentProduction
JobExecutive Producer
Vote Count11
The pace quickens when the academy receives a message from the future warning of impending doom. It seems that Devastation (the most wanted criminal in the galaxy) along with brother, Shorty, and sinister sidekick Morgana have returned to conquer Earth for imminent destruction. It's an SPD Emergency as the team of elite warriors morph into their superhuman multi-hued spandex to take on intergalactic minions. Just when the fury circle is tightening, a mysterious Force from the Future materializes, riding a giant Omegamax Cycle.
Release Date2005-12-06
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Vote Count6
An aging convict serving out a life sentence alone on a distant planet is forced to confront his past when a new prisoner shows up and pushes him to remember his life on earth.
Release Date2024-07-24
DepartmentProduction
JobExecutive Producer
Vote Count10
When an attack on a Palmerston North fraud detective made headlines in October 1996, the New Zealand public followed the media reports with fascination. They read like a plot of a Hollywood film or detective novel. Poison pen letters, satanic worship, a police hate crime, and a mysterious and violent pyromaniac. But little did the public know that as the truth emerged, the story was going to get far more bizarre, and the police would turn the focus of their investigation on one of their own.
Release Date2015-08-23
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
A docu-drama covering one of the most famous cases in New Zealand history, the murder of Harvey and Jeanette Crewe in 1970.
Release Date1980-01-31
DepartmentDirecting
JobDirector
Vote Count2
It's Christmas 2006. Wolf's in prison to stay, Judd's in prison and trying to get out. The family is going to Tutaekuri Bay, where they go to every year — only some things have changed. Who is that in "their" spot? Who put a gate up stopping access to "their" beach? Who will win the bet on when Pascalle will give it up? And why do they always come here in the first place?
Release Date2006-12-26
DepartmentProduction
JobProducer
Filmmaker Giles Walker takes an informal look at how our best skiers work and live. Filmed in 1976, this short movie follows the Canadian ski team on a tight schedule in Chile and Argentina. With 2 ½ tons of equipment, speeds of up to 140 km/h, gruelling workouts and a dramatic theft, it's safe to say that downhill racing is not for the faint of heart.
Release Date1976-01-01
DepartmentEditing
JobEditor
