Monsoon

Movie night with Iris.

Director Hong Khaou draws upon his own experiences with this moving tale of a British-Vietnamese man returning to Saigon for the first time in over thirty years to try to find a fitting place to scatter his parents' ashes.

This opens with a beautiful aerial shot showing a road being devoured by a swarm of scooters before a number of cars attempt to struggle their way through. As well as preparing the viewer for the constant soundtrack of Vietnamese traffic, it is an effective metaphor for the protagonist's own struggles. We are taken along on this journey of discovery for Kit as he deals with the emotional turmoil of bereavement at the same time as exploring his own cultural identity, feeling simultaneously like a tourist and someone with roots in a country foreign to him.

Monsoon is not for those with a preference for plot-driven films with mood and emotion very much driving the narrative.

For every critic afraid to tell the truth about an Asian centric film starring Henry Golding, I'll do it for you. It's a non-existent script where Henry spends 75% of movie wandering around saying and doing nothing. With little character development and zero depth to Henry's acting, there is little left of value to the film. Perhaps this emotional, mostly nonspeaking journey could have been saved by an actor who knew how to act well enough to make us feel something, anything, besides boredom.

Not without its moments but Hong Khaou's 'Monsoon' feels frustratingly underwritten and unfocused. The acting appears wooden in many scenes and, when all is said and done, the movie is largely pointless.

For those that felt this film was too slow, too unfocused, too whatever.... Too bad for you. I love small films like this, that unveil themselves by the frame, that tell a simple story about complex circumstances and lives. To me, it was beautiful, understated, mesmerizing. A glimpse of Vietnam today, the toll the war took, the transition to economic advancement, the personal suffering and lives changed, and more. I grew up as a kid with the fake Vietnam body count on the nightly news during supper. I also grew up to be gay, and to watch that aspect of this story slowly develop left me with hope. And yes I would see it again, if only to see even more nuance I might have missed. This film was almost a random choice on a Netflix night.... I'm glad I made that choice.

This could have been a very personal topic for the filmmakers, but to the casual viewer it is quite a bore. This could have been a poignant film about self discovery in the against the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the refugee crisis in the 1980's and 1990's. However, the film focuses on Kit's sexual conquests way more than the reason he is in Vietnam. The ending is just puzzling and not very satisfying either.