Changi is presented as a frame story, with six older war veterans reuniting in 1999 to share their experiences and memories of their time as young men at the camp.
The series is also notable for featuring scenes of toilet humour and black comedy in an otherwise serious production, a deliberate inclusion on the part of writer John Doyle, better known for his comedic alter-ego Rampaging Roy Slaven.
[2] Doyle originally envisaged the series as a sitcom with the working title of Worn Out & Weary and he first pitched the idea to the ABC as such.
[6] Two cast members portraying the older versions of the main characters previously served in World War II.
Bud Tingwell served as a fighter pilot while Slim DeGrey was actually imprisoned as a POW at the Changi camp after the fall of Singapore to the Japanese.
Tom, a widower living in an aged care hostel, has mixed feelings about the impending reunion, dreading the traumatic memories that it will bring back.
Tom, in a dazed shock at the events unfolding around him, wanders into the compound and is nearly shot dead by a guard but two British POWs rescue him.
Dawn arrives and the surviving prisoners emerge to find the Japanese have all left, including Lieutenant Aso, his fate unknown.
Tom, the most gentle and sensitive of the group, marries after the war but the relationship proves to be an unhappy one, as his wife eventually grows bored of his timid, introverted nature and she feels imprisoned by his silent brooding about the past.
Robin Oliver, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, declared the series to be "immensely satisfying" and Robert Fidgeon, in Melbourne's Herald Sun, wrote that it was "one of the finest pieces of drama ever produced (in Australia)"[6] Michael Fitzgerald, writing in Time, said that the series, despite some flaws, was "the finest, most thoughtful local drama since Australia's miniseries heyday in the 1980s...
He said that the series "is a long way from representing fairly or in a balanced way what went on in the notorious camp and is close to being a profligate waste of public money".
In his view, Changi portrayed "an enfeebled narrative of the POW experience – narrow, parochial, inward-looking, blind to the complexities of former prisoner's voices but attuned to a nostalgic vision... of the Anzac Legend.
"[10] The series Changi attracted considerable controversy when it first aired in 2001 and drew both praise and criticism from military historians, media commentators and real-life former POWs.
Peter Stanley, principal historian at the Australian War Memorial 1987–2007, was highly critical of the series: "It gives viewers a misleading and unrealistic idea of the POW experience and of their captors.
Some ex-POWs declared the series to be a moving, accurate portrayal whilst others dismissed it as unrealistic, overly sanitised, inaccurate and guilty of failing to depict the hardships of the real camp.
Doyle claimed that he wanted the series to show how 'Australian humour and mateship allowed Australians to survive in greater numbers than other groups of prisoners.