Rating: * * *
Verdict: Impressive, often harrowing screen saga about a Vietnamese family's escape to resettlement in America.
The financial muscle is American but the heartbeat that pounds through this sprawling saga is distinctly Vietnamese.
Saigon-born writer-director Tran shows some mastery of the elements of screen melodrama: his film, though not particularly innovative, is an impressive and often harrowing depiction of the refugee experience and a far more delicate and precise piece of work than Oliver Stone's bloated Heaven and Earth.
Twin narratives unfold in parallel: Long Nguyen (played by an actor of the same name) decides to stay in Saigon after it falls to the communists but orders his wife (Diem Lien), his mother (Kieu Chinh) and small son (Nguyen Thai Nguyen) to board one of the fleeing boats. The film cuts between the horrors Long endures at a "re-education" camp and the equally appalling suffering of the "boat people" his loved ones have joined. Much of the tension arises from the fact that the characters in each half of the story do not know what has become of those in the other half.
Tran pulls no punches - the film is not for the faint of heart, though it seems almost tasteless to say so, given the reality of events it depicts. But the film's second half, in sunlit Orange County, marks a change of pace as horror gives way to sadness. Without giving away the ending, it's worth saying Tran, a migrant himself, is alive to the fact the immigrant's arrival is seldom the end of his problems.
