Janus is an Australian drama television series screened on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1994 and 1995. Two series were produced, with a total of 26 episodes.
Janus was a spin-off series from the earlier ABC-TV crime series Phoenix.
Loosely based on the true story of Melbourne's Pettingill family and the Walsh Street police shootings, Janus follows the bitterly-fought prosecutions of a notorious criminal family, the Hennesseys, from the viewpoints of the family, the police and, in particular, the lawyers, prosecutors, barristers and judges involved in all aspects of the story.
When the series begins, four members of the infamous Hennessey clan are acquitted of the shooting of two young policemen in a bungled bank heist. The city of Melbourne is shocked as brothers Mal and Steve, along with brother-in-law Darren Mack and friend Ken Hardy, walk free.
The prosecutors, judges, magistrates and police—many modelled heavily on real-life legal figures—are determined to put the Hennessey members
The plot is based on real events described by Ivan Franko in a series of criminal reports for the newspaper "Kurjer Lwowski" in 1889. The writer used the motives of these events in the story "The Foundations of Society".
A private lawyer (Hiroshi Mikami) who is infatuated with the widow of the Mamiya conglomerate (Emi Shindo) and aims for her inheritance. But he had multiple personalities. One day, university student Kawashima Megumi is mistaken for her older sister, Maiko. She is given a key to a coin locker, and finds inside the diary of Maiko's real father, a zaibatsu leader. Using her sister's name, Megumi gets close to the widow of the zaibatsu leader.
In 1983, the wife and stepdaughter of Dutch Jaitsen Singh are gruesomely murdered in California. Singh is convicted of inciting the murders, but has maintained his innocence for nearly 40 years. Given the way his case was handled at the time, this may well be true. Filmmaker Hans Pool investigates this intriguing and complex case and gets exclusive access to court and police documents that reveal a shocking story about racism, corruption, a mistress and a dubious key witness. How did Singh's American dream turn into a nightmare?
Lieutenant Kom Sarakupt is assigned to impersonate Cheep Chuchai, a very dangerous criminal who looks like him, so he can infiltrate the Sing Ang organization, which was created to conduct illegal underground business.
An economic drama depicting the struggle and collapse of a Japanese general trading company. The US branch president of a trading company challenges Japan's internal power struggle and the North American oil market.
At the end of the 1920s, in Petrograd, on Krestovsky Island, the corpse of a man similar to the engineer Garin was found. Garin himself managed to take advantage of the brilliant discovery of the scientist Mantsev and designed an apparatus with destructive power. A dangerous hunt begins for this invention. Having faked the death, he emigrated from Russia and, under the guise of a French businessman, tries to establish contacts with the head of one of the European financial concerns, Rolling. Garin's ultimate goal is power over the world...
Detective Kichinosuke Yasuura, also known as "Yasu-san", A detective with a sense of humanity and justice that deviates from the framework of the police organization is popular.