Diagonaldi
Very well executed
Bob
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
siderite
To be honest, I only got this movie because Bai Ling was in it. She was a secondary character, however, and the main story was about this half Vietnamese, half American boy who searches for his parents.The film is soul wrenching at times, showing this quiet and calm boy going through hell just to survive and go on, but most of the time it just slowly builds up empathy and outrage. There is a timeless quality about the feel of the movie (I honestly thought it was an 80's film) and the acting is top notch. The first half of it is in Vietnamese, the other in English, after the main character crosses the ocean.Bottom line: quite good, however really slow paced. There are not many scenes to make the blood boil, so you need to be in the mood for a slow drama. It is worth it, though. It makes people understand that there are misfortunes, and then there are misfortunes.
lastliberal
Damien Nguyen is incredible in his first film role as a child with a Vietnamese mother and American father, who is trying to find out where he fits in the world. As a mixed race child, he is shunned by the Vietnamese and cannot even hide in a small village with his grandmother.He sets out on a journey to find his mother and, ultimately, his father in America. It is a long and hazardous trip. Along the way he is befriended by the incredibly beautiful Bail Ling and by Tim Roth. He eventually finds his father; played tenderly by Nick Nolte.It is a film for drama lovers. It moves slow, but that is necessary to develop the story. There is never a dead spot as the tapestry of his life is carefully woven. Loss, hardship, fear, embarrassment, love, sacrifice - they are all there and critically important to the story.The ending is surprising, tender, and fitting. It is a movie that will not disappoint.
Charles Delacroix
I just saw this movie today, although it's been in release here for several weeks, I think. I was deeply moved.This is truly a beautiful movie: above all about Beauty and Ugliness. The main character, Binh, we're told very early in the movie, is Ugly; his mother is Beautiful; and the rest of the film displays a constant tension between the question What is Beauty? and the question What is Ugliness? The hooker's looks contrast sharply with Binh's. The limpid, natural beauty of Vietnam contrasts sharply with the cold, commercial ugliness of New York. The ugly interior of the ship contrasts sharply with the beauty of the sea. The culminating sequence in which Binh finds his father also says things about perception of Ugliness and Beauty that I don't think I can comment too much on without, perhaps, giving too much of the story away.The actor who played Binh was truly superb, in my opinion. Nick Nolte was excellent, but really more of a cameo; Binh is the main character in the story, and carries his persona well.I do have to note some disappointing features.First, it is perhaps natural in a movie about Vietnam not to include social commentary on ethnicity and race. Yet the 100% uniform (no exception, as far as I know) depiction of White Anglos as either racist or exploitive or both, is literally racist. I guess this kind of depiction is "PC" but if so, frankly it's time for "PC" to grow up. No one who's actually been to Texas, for example, would think that all white Texans go around calling everybody else "boy". Please. This kind of obvious inauthenticity is bound to call into question much else in the film's racial and ethnic commentary.There were some technical problems. In the open boat, when Binh awakes to find a fruit floating in the water, he looks first to his left, then to his right, and only then straight ahead to find land prominently on the horizon directly in front of him. It's a small thing but very inauthentic. People tend to look dead ahead first, not to the side. And a few other items like this too I think, can't recall offhand, but I remember noticing them at the time.But none of this detracts from the overall beauty of The Beautiful Country ... and the complex and challenging examination it poses of Beauty and Ugliness in many, many expressions. A wonderful movie.
leilapostgrad
The children of American GI's in Vietnam were treated as second-class citizens – walking symbols of American control, destruction, and occupation. Binh (Damien Nguyen) lives with a foster family, can only eat their leftovers, and longs to find his own family, including the mother who couldn't support him and the American father he never knew. With only a picture of his parents, he leaves the village in search of his roots.Binh finds his mother (and a young half brother) in Saigon, but after a deadly accident, he and his new brother are forced to flee the city and the country in search of America. Binh endures the purgatory of a Malaysian refugee camp and survives the hell of an illegal slave ship.His travels are extraordinary and devastating, but the character of Binh is reason enough to see this incomparable epic. He has lived his life as an outcast, full of sorrow and shame. He rarely has the courage to look other people in the eye. But every catastrophic event in his journey brings him strength and courage, so that by the time he finds his father, he's man enough to face him. Or is he?
