The Beautiful Country

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.

One of the least attractive aspects of the American movie industry is that while crap, such as "Fever Pitch" (the remake), "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Be Cool," get millions of dollars spent on marketing and promotion and are splashed on thousands of screens, a gem like "The Beautiful Country" gets barely released. Even then, it only hits the major cities.

I pretty much knew little to nothing about this film when I saw it. I vaguely recall seeing an Ebert & Roeper review of it, though I don't remember when they recommended it. What a completely wonderful surprise this one turned out to be.

"The Beautiful Country" is as much about the lengths to which immigrants will go to come to the United States as it is about a man's search for his father. Writer Sabina Murray (who apparently was hired by Terrence Malick and Edward R. Pressman to write a film about immigrants and came up with this idea) deftly uses Binh's (Damien Nguyen) quest as a device to depict the hardships of immigrants.

What ultimately makes "The Beautiful Country" a shattering experience is its complete unpretentiousness. There isn't a single emotion in this film that isn't earned. It's as much a testament to Murray's script as it is to the performances.

Nick Nolte might be the name actor in this film, but his role's relatively small. But, just as he did in "Hotel Rwanda" (2004), Nolte takes what's essentially a cameo and turns it into something memorable. He gives his character true depth.

The two surprises in this film are Nguyen and Bai Ling as Ling, a sexy Chinese refugee who is willing to do anything - anything - to fulfill her dreams. This is undoubtedly the best thing Bai Ling has done. Usually cast as caricatures or in minor roles, she imbues her character with genuine feeling. We understand and feel for this woman, her struggles and her passions.

Nguyen completely dominates the film. He doesn't do anything wrong. He underplays Binh so expertly, you'd think this was a veteran actor, not a novice. It's such an incredibly honest performance, you wouldn't for an instant believe Nguyen is a surfer boy from California. It's one of the year's best performances.

At a time when the news media and politicians seem to be concentrating on demonizing immigrants, it's important to see a film like this, to see why people leave their homelands, endure unimaginable suffering to come here. True, the immigrants in this film aren't of Arab descent or Haitian - we all know exactly how they'd be treated. But "The Beautiful Country" is all about the beauty and ugliness of life. It's also emotionally devastating at times. And what makes the film all the more remarkable is that the gut-wrenching scenes never come across as any sort of contrivance. There's no emotional blackmail here; the actors play the scenes straight and with a gesture, a simple word, manage to bring us to tears.

"The Beautiful Country" is a rare treasure, a film that never cheats us, never asks for what it hasn't earned and still manages to be deeply affecting. And in keeping with the rest of the film, the final scene is simply perfect.

A film like this deserves a much larger audience than it got. This is why we go to the movies.

This movie is not specifically about the Vietnam war, but it gives a good perspective that is not biased in any way. It proves that justice and freedom are not present for all people, only the "lucky" ones. The people that are born in the western world. We take it all for granted what 70% of the population can just envy. It is usually said that if you work hard you will always become something significant. But after watching this movie, I understand that no matter how hard you work, if you are born poor you WILL most likely stay poor. The story follows Binh, a half Vietnamese and half American man. He isnt accepted in society in Vietnam just becasue of this hard fact "he is the enemy" and therefore he is worthless. This has become a major issue in Vietnam after the Vietnam war, but it has never been taken this seriously before. This is a very good movie! I would reccomend everyone to watch this, it gives everyone a humanitarian lesson about how we are all humanbeings no matter where we come from.

"The Beautiful Country" is a film that tries to capture one of the worst problems in the world today, illegal people smuggling into that promised land that for some is the United States. Director Hans Peter Moland has created a film with the feeling of a documentary that follows the hard journey of a man in search of a father he never knew. Beautifully photographed by Stuart Drybargh, and with a haunting musical score by Zbigniew Preisner, "The Beautiful Country" could well have been subtitled "His Worst Nightmare".

We are introduced to Binh, a tall young man living in Viet Nam after the end of the war. The time is 1990 and we are offered a glimpse of Binh's life where his relatives, as well as the rest of the Vietnamese don't like him because of his mixed race. His father was an American G.I. who married his mother, Mai, but Binh never gets to meet him because Steve, as the father is named, disappeared from Saigon, never to be found again.

The film is Binh's odyssey to be reunited with the father he doesn't know. It's a horrific journey where Binh shows his own skills to endure the worst possible conditions to realize his dream of getting to meet a father he never knew. It's a homage to the surviving spirit of a man.

Damien Nguyen is Binh, the young mixed race Vietnamese man. He does an outstanding job under Mr. Moland's direction. Nick Nolte, as Steve has some good moments. The supporting cast makes an excellent contribution to the movie.

The film proves to what extent a determined man will go in order to get what he wants.

My son, Tam, and I were reunited on July 24, 2003, after a separation of 36 years. His mother, Huong, tried to flee Vietnam in May, 1975, but due to circumstances beyond her control, she missed the boat which was to take her and Tam to freedom. The communists caught the boat on the Saigon River, and sank it, killing all aboard. Huong finally decided to stick it out and worked hard to raise the money to come to the US. After arriving with Tam in 1994, she died of a stroke later that year. By a stroke of fortune, Tam, in 2003 found someone (an American) who could access my name in the Navy records. Within a few days of locating my name, the navy received a request to forward a letter from Tam. Needless to say, as I never knew if Tam or his mother had survived the war, I was stunned when I opened the large manila envelope from the Navy Department. The rest is history, and we are together. Tam lives and works near Los Angeles, and I recently retired and moved to a close-by state.

The movie, "The Beautiful Country", which I first viewed last night (3/12/07) really struck home. I feel like "I'm one in a million".