The Beautiful Country (2004)

It was my privilege to see this movie at the Plaza Theater in Atlanta on a Saturday afternoon with about 150 Vietnamese: grandparents, parents, and kids obviously "made in the U.S.A." . . it was even a greater privilege to be allowed to sit next to a typical third grader who's command of English is far better than his understanding of the parlance of the Old Country. His folks and grandparents, uncles, etc. were all around us, but allowed the lad to ask me questions during the movie while giving his family leisure to thoroughly enjoy it. I whispered my replies as plainly as I could, given the situation, and as we walked out of the show he wished me well and genuinely thanked me (with a little familial prodding).... My situation is that I am a Vietnam veteran whose reckless, existential behavior in 1971 may well have resulted in a son or daughter, as another reviewer, ''huckfinn'', above.... Amazingly, the LORD saw fit in His grace and mercy to save me in 1973, and off and on I cast about for a way to make peace with that part of my sordid past.... well, after I had been married for almost four years, Dung Tanh Phu came into my life, a blessing from World Vision. "Young", as we called him, born just after I left The Nam, had had no little difficulty arriving to America as one of the Boat people. His aunt, Mui and he were the only ones of his family to escape in 1979. So traumatized was Young that he was a problem child in his first, foster home. When we received him (in the name of Christ), he was tubercular. The wife put him on macrobiotics for six months and amazed the folks at the St. Louis County Health Department. We kept him for three formative years and turned him back over to his aunt in somewhat less than delightful circumstances, but that's a longer story.... I won my war by having such wonderful opportunities given to me for ministry to the wonderful Vietnamese and may yet win another of my wars - if God wills - but three's a story yet to be written... suffice it to say that I dearly loved my experience of this film, and hope to share it with my grown children someday. Blessings!

Damien Nguyen is incredible in his first film role as a child with a Vietnamese mother and American father, who is trying to find out where he fits in the world. As a mixed race child, he is shunned by the Vietnamese and cannot even hide in a small village with his grandmother.He sets out on a journey to find his mother and, ultimately, his father in America. It is a long and hazardous trip. Along the way he is befriended by the incredibly beautiful Bail Ling and by Tim Roth. He eventually finds his father; played tenderly by Nick Nolte.It is a film for drama lovers. It moves slow, but that is necessary to develop the story. There is never a dead spot as the tapestry of his life is carefully woven. Loss, hardship, fear, embarrassment, love, sacrifice - they are all there and critically important to the story.The ending is surprising, tender, and fitting. It is a movie that will not disappoint.

The Beautiful Country is a drama ostensibly concerned with consequences of the Vietnam War, but I would argue its content makes that conflict almost incidental. The story is, rather, a more general parable about migration, assimilation, identity and family - an unabashedly humanist film.We begin with a young Vietnamese man, Binh, whose father was an American G.I. There are a few brief scenes which outline the discrimination he faces, and his abrupt departure from rural Vietnam to seek his mother seems, like much of the film's plot, somewhat contrived. Why now? What specifically drove him? He faced such discrimination all his life.His journey to Saigon (oddly, not referred to as Ho Chi Minh City in the subtitle) and his mother then grows into a larger quest to find his father in America. It is only at this point that Binh's motivation becomes fleshed out, and the idea of the immigrant identity comes to the foreground.The main impetus for a harrowing journey halfway across the world is twofold. One, Binh seeks a better life for himself and his young half-brother. Two, he seeks to know his father, perhaps to better understand himself. America is referred to, early on, as "the beautiful country", but that enigmatic phrase will haunt the film's realism.The plight of illegal immigrants is something we all are aware of - dangerous transportation into the country and degrading treatment inside the country. These sequences, I think, undermine the film's more powerful message, because we might be tempted to see the film as a general rallying cry for immigration reform in general, instead of an exploration of one immigrant's journey.The film succeeds best when it pauses from the harsh realities to focus on Binh's inward journey. If the world outside him, and its hardships, are overstated, then he is likewise understated in expressing his own troubles.The journey, and his perseverance, then becomes a metaphor for Binh's exploration of what, exactly, the beautiful country is. At one point, one character even refers to Vietnam as the beautiful country - a seemingly confusing idea, since Binh traveled so far to get away from the country which would not accept him.What is beautiful to Binh, then, is relative; he seeks acceptance, and comfort. He is, really, looking for a place which would be reasonably called home. Perhaps most immigration is more practical than this, but the idea that there is a place where one belongs is, indeed, compelling, and I think it's what drives most of our lives.The Beautiful Country, then, speaks to everyone's desire to fit in and shows how identity is formed not by complacency, but by active search.

Classic tale of redemption, brimming with drama and a lead character that says little, but who you quickly relate to and associate yourself with. Starts of kind of slow, but after 15-20 minutes, the movie picks up and never slows down, with high drama and classic storytelling. A must-see. The movie is set to the backdrop of the aftermath of the Vietnam war in Vietnam, and portrays the poverty-stricken environment they are forced to live in. It then moves on to show the desperation of would-be American immigrants fleeing from one land that doesn't want them to sneak into another. After watching this movie, you will definitely have a greater appreciation for what some immigrants have to go through.