On first sight maybe just another nouveau-violence movie, but actually much more than that. It's about the coming of age of three characters: a riksja-rider, his sister and a poet/pimp/ganster. The innocent riksja rider is forced to join a gang, his sister transforms from water-carrier to some sort of geisha (somehow staying virgin), and the poet who "moves" them suffers from a mental crisis. All this against the decor of a busy, and quite noisy, Ho-Chi-Min City. Every now and then the story is put in a frame by seemingly uncorrelated shots of o.a. posing children. Fluids, like blood, paint and water, are present in almost every scene. Perhaps it was a (failed) attempt to soften the censors, but any western influence that shows up in the movie has a negative aura. And then there is the funny shot of a us-army helicopter that is carried by a low-loader through a busy crossing and that falls side-ways on the street.
It's 120 minutes of fascinating cinema, and one of the very few movies I give my 10.
It's 120 minutes of fascinating cinema, and one of the very few movies I give my 10.