The residents of Ho Chi Minh City face modernization amid widespread poverty. A retired American Marine arrives on a search for his daughter, whom he abandoned at the end of the Vietnam War. Elsewhere, a cyclo driver falls for a troubled prostitute and schemes to raise money so he can spend time with her. Additionally, a young women begins harvesting lotuses for a writer suffering from leprosy, and a child trinket seller loses his traveling case.
Cinematography
Lisa Rinzler's golden-hour Ho Chi Minh City looks like faded memory.
Direction
Tony Bui weaves three stories that never quite touch, devastatingly.
Score
Vietnamese opera and ambient dread in perfect uneasy marriage.
Director
Tony Bui
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Tony Bui was only 26 when this became the first Vietnamese film nominated for an Oscar. He maxed out credit cards to finish post-production.
The three seasons structure mirrors Vietnam's actual agricultural calendar—harvest, monsoon, dry—each story trapped in its own weather.
US
