Three Seasons
by Tony Bui
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Diem Kieu, Hanh Kieu, Ngoc Hiep Nguyen, Ngoc Minh, Phat Trieu HoangDirector: Tony Bui
Producer: Harvey Keitel
Writer: Tony Bui
Producer: Ben Bohen
Producer: Charles Rosen
Producer: Jason Kliot
Producer: Joana Vicente
Writer: Timothy Linh Bui
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: Vietnamese (Unknown); Korean (Subtitled); English (Original Language); Vietnamese (Original Language); Korean (Published)
Format: NTSC, Subtitled
Running Time: 104 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-02-26
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Japanese Import
Movie Reviews of Three Seasons
Movie Review: Great Film, Highly Recommended
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is terrific. It is several stories of hope, love, redemption and beauty for people leading difficult, often desperate lives. The stories wind together through the interactions of the characters involved in the different subplots. Most of all it is stories of people finding each other and recognizing inner beauty when others may not. It displays the haunting beauty of Vietnam amidst the poverty that many people there live in daily. I was given a copy of this on VHS by a Vietnamese friend years ago. I was impressed by the music (singing of Kien An and the lady lotus pickers) and poetry (written by her employer, Teacher Dao, who is dying of leprosy and old age). The sweet tenacity of the cyclo driver, Hai courting the prostitute, Lan. The search for and tender meeting of the marine (Harvey Kietel) with his daughter Phuong, from a wartime liaison with a bar girl. The struggle for subsistence of little Woody and the little street girl. I was so taken by it that I recently bought a DVD of it. It's a definite keeper. It is in Vietnamese with subtitles except where Harvey Kietel speaks. A very positive, heart-warming movie! You may need to keep a box of tissues handy if you are the emotional type. I get misty-eyed just thinking about it.
Summary of Three Seasons
Although its publicity touts Three Seasons, a triple winner at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, as "the only American film made entirely in Vietnam,, there is little that is American about this movie. Its sensibility seems far more Vietnamese than American, from its lyrical Oriental imagery and its concern with the plight of Vietnamese citizens since the war to its reverence for the country's ancient culture. Similarly, Harvey Keitel is listed as the star, but his is really the most minor of the film's major roles.Three Seasons tells three tangentially linked stories. First is the tale of Kien An (Ngoc Hiep Nguyen), a lovely young woman who works picking lotus blossoms at a sanitarium. She becomes a scribe for its mysterious proprietor, Teacher Dao (Manh Cuong Tran), a leper who hides himself away in shame but whose soul is full of beautiful poetry. Then there is Hai (Don Duong), a gentle "cyclo" (bicycle ricksha) driver who falls in love with Lan (Zoe Bui), an alluring, feisty prostitute he sees coming and going from the big tourist hotels. Last, there is James Hager (Keitel), an ex-Marine who fought in the war and has returned to find the daughter he fathered many years before. There is also a charming plot about Woody (Huu Duoc Nguyen), a little street urchin who sells contraband out of a suitcase. The narrative involving Keitel's character is the least developed in the film, and seems to be almost an afterthought, but in any event, truly magnificent visuals and a delicate lyricism make Three Seasons a haunting, bittersweet film portrait of life in contemporary Vietnam. --Laura Mirsky
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