Saïgon Électrique

It is fairly unusual to see contemporary urban Vietnamese movies that are commercial and not art-house social realism. This is a youth love story cum dance film and it is enjoyably upbeat. The young cast are attractive especially two female leads who represent the various aspects of a rapidly-modernizing Vietnam. The story line - with the evil developers threatening the youth club - is a little underdeveloped but it doesn't matter too much. The film is still good to look at. The Ho Chi Minh City locations are well used. An extra point of interest is to see how the Vietnamese kids have taken up hip-hop/break dancing (now the ubiquitous vector of a globalised youth culture) and produced an authentic Asian take on it. Not a major film but refreshing and watchable in its way.

A great movie! So here's the storyline; a young, innocent ribbon dancer from the countryside moves developing, populated Ho Chi Minh City to pursue a career in dance. Here she is introduced to the busy city life of modern 21st Century Vietnam including its dance and pop youth culture. She befriends a young streetdancer part of a dance crew- Saigon Fresh which rivals dance crew- North Killers from Hanoi.

Its an interesting movie, probably the first to portray break dancing from Vietnam and it has an appealing enough plot to keep you watching. Not only that, the youth-pop-dance scene most popular in American (NY) movies such as "Step Up", etc. is portrayed with a lot of authenticity and skill. It's a bit clique but who cares- the characters, plot, choreography is quite impressive!

In my never-ending journey to find all the unknown films of the world, which I call From The Depths, I have found myself sidestepping my normal safe genres and moving into some different for me categories. This has brought me to the Vietnamese dance movie Saigon Electric. A movie that mixes Step up, and Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo. Kinda.

Now, remember, this type of film is out of my norm, and while I actually didn't really mind it, I feel like the people who enjoy dance films will probably get a lot more mileage out of this one then I did. Coming from different dance styles country girl Mai, and street tough dancer Kim meet and become friends when they bond over life stuff. But their friendship is tested as they must navigate through love, dance, and saving the youth center from being torn down. To do this they must throw a huge block party...actually that never happened. As much as I wanted it too. They actually head a way smarter route which I won't spoil here. Story-wise it seems fine. I mean it's nothing new but does well with what it has. I am a little lost on the dancing as I have no idea if it is good or bad. It looked good to me at some times, and others I was just not into it. Overall though the drama and romance are pretty good, and it was great to see an alright film outside of my normal stuff.

This was also watched for From the Depths in the month of love leading up to Valentine's Day. It is also easily the best film of the three I've watched for it as well. I will again say that if you are a fan of this type of film, you will get more out of this then I did. So, for that reason I recommend it.