Boat people, passeport pour l'enfer

A Japanese photographer returns to Vietnam three years after documenting its 'liberation' and becomes increasingly involved in the fate of a young girl and her family. It is a time of poverty, violence and death.

There are many deaths in this film and the majority of these deaths are graphically depicted. One of the least explicit, but perhaps the most moving, occurs on a scrap heap surrounded by a body of filthy water. While the young victim's blood is still flowing out, his peer runs the length of the heap bearing a standard, his identity and the colours of the flag rendered anonymous by the remote camera angle and the silhouette produced by the setting sun. The boy lays the flag over the body with a timeliness and purpose that implies he is always ready for such tragedies. It is one of the film's most striking images, calling to mind such questionable iconic images as the flag-raisers of Iwo Jima.

Such readings are possible over much of the film. Director Ann Hui's 'vérité' camera calls to mind Altman's M*A*S*H, as does her treatment of violence and its bloody consequences - something which contrasts with the comic book violence of later 80s Hong Kong films (with which many people are more familiar). Comparisons could also be made with Kubrick's use of zoom (though M*A*S*H has this too) and formal composition, with characters placed in the centre of frame as if being interviewed for live television. Kubrick, of course, would later direct his own Vietnam masterpiece, Full Metal Jacket.

Comparisons could even be made with Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Coppola's helicopter sequence filmed in the Philippines shares a lot with Hui's remarkable opening shot of tanks driving through the streets of Hainan, China (both standing in for Vietnam). However, where Coppola tended towards using the imagery of Vietnam to attain a greater artistic goal, Hui would be discredited for receiving any such reading. Where the sound of Coppola's napalm explosions bring a certain excitement and satisfaction to the viewer, the gunshots heralding executions and the chance for children to pillage the corpses has an entirely different motive and effect.

One of the film's strengths is that, while it plays with, even exploits some well-established grammars of film making - tragedy, documentary, romance - it never defers to a single one. The film works on each level equally well. It is a well-told story: excellently paced and genuinely compelling right up to the end credits. At the other end of the spectrum, it is perhaps the boldest and most unflinching criticism of the brutality and hypocrisy of communist states to come out of a small island that would, 17 years later, become a Special Administrative Region of such a state.

The film has elements of curiosity. One can accept for purely practical reasons the need for Cantonese to be the common language of Vietnamese and Japanese characters. It is harder to understand why a Japanese man (played by a local Hong Kong actor) should be the main protagonist, especially considering the film's political overtones. Does he represent objectiveness or irony? Perhaps there is no single answer.

Despite some minor flaws, the film manages to illustrate without preaching, condescending or even aestheticising the subject, even though the dimly-lit tableaux and pitch-perfect editing combine very pleasingly for the eye. Hui works with a lightness of touch rarely seen in Hong Kong or Hollywood at that time or since and with a feminist subtext scarcely seen in her later work. This film well-deserves the acclaim with which it was awarded on its release and is sadly underrated at the time of writing. It serves as an interesting and important counterpoint to the various lavish 'magnum opuses' of American directors of that era and has an enduring relevance and importance that many young people, especially of the film's native land, would benefit from experiencing.

Watching this now and although it is quite interesting, rather much has changed. Although we hoped that this would have been made in Vietnam but it is not at all and I'm sure the communist country must not have been so happy. Made by Hong Kong and on location in the Chinese island of Hainan which is rather well done but of course we really wanted to see Vietnam. Also we thought that we would see the 'boat people' but not really at all. In Chinese the title is literally, Run Towards the Angry Sea, which would have been much better although we do finally get to a boat. I know so little about Vietnam so it was pretty good for anything about this but it was so sad and violent. All the cast, including the Vietnamese and the rather naive Japanese cameraman were all Cantonese speaking people.

Boat People is a film that looks at the horrors that existed in Communist-controlled Vietnam after the war ended. I appreciate that they told the story through the eyes of a photojournalist from Japan so he starts off a bit naive. That allows us to gradually discover the truth with him. I also thought it was great that they utilized some young children to teach him, because that just enhances the horror of the things going on. They also did a nice job of showing how the government was trying to cover up the ugly truth. All that being said, while Boat People is effective film-making, it's hard to watch. I don't handle this kind of story all that well. I've seen my fair share of war movies (or post-war movies) and there's only so much you can take without a new or different perspective thrown in to make it more engaging. I was never bored by Boat People, but I'll pass on ever watching it again.

BOAT PEOPLE is a hard-hitting slice of social commentary from director Ann Hui, telling the plight of the Vietnamese people following the North's win in the Vietnam War. She based her film on stories told to her by refugees and filmed this movie on Hainan Island which adds to the authenticity of the picture. This fits well into that early '80s grittiness you see in the likes of THE KILLING FIELDS. George Lam, playing a Japanese photographer, is the nominal protagonist but the film is much more interesting when depicting local lives; in particular, Season Ma really shines as the innocent girl and Andy Lau wows in a star-making turn.

Like most Americans of draft age when the Vietnam War was raging, I promptly forgot about the hellish place once we were defeated there and I was no longer subject to getting my ass shot off for the likes of Diem. So this powerful film was a timely reminder for me, and I suspect others, that the country's sufferings did not exactly lessen under Communist rule. And while I have no doubt that there is more than a soupcon of anti Comm propaganda at work here this movie is a much needed antidote to the Jane Fonda fueled Ho Chi Minh worship so prevalent, to this day, among certain of my lefty friends. In short, the guy was a monster and so was his authoritarian and brutal government, and director Ann Hui allows you to miss none of it in this harrowing, bleak tale, albeit with a glimmer of hope at the end. I especially like how Hui effectively integrates the Japanese photo journalist into her story rather than, as in say "The Killing Fields", keeping the Saintly Newsperson above and beyond the horror while letting the lowly peasants bare the full brunt of the atrocities. I also like how how this director seems to have an innate sense of when to speed things up and when to slow them down as in the contemplative scenes involving the old revolutionary and his young/old mistress, scenes that seem to reach back beyond even the 1960s to the time of Graham Greene. So, to sum up, a most impressive work, and I hope to see more of this fine director's work. Give it an A minus.