Blog Archives

I Come with the Rain (2009)

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Posted on December 2, 2009 by Elizabeth Kerr

Vietnamese-French director Tran Ahn Hung’s Cyclo and The Scent of Green Papaya were exercises in style over substance. Atmospheric almost to a fault, both made you forget that great films possess a strong story to support their images. Unsurprisingly his latest, I Come With the Rain, is more of the same. Tran loads up the garden-variety revenge/redemption tale with enough religious imagery to make the Pope proud, mixing it with an audience-baiting (some would say calculated) international cast and … (read more)

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Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000)

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Posted on July 31, 2003 by Ching Yee

Vertical Ray of the Sun is indeed like its namesake, akin to a shaft of the morning sun [for me anyway], delicate, fresh and inspiring.

Many such allegories can be made about the characters and feel of Tran Anh Hung’s films [Scent of a Green Papaya, Cyclo]. One tends to use these superlatives to describe all his films because it’s the strongest element in all his films and the one that leaves the deepest impression.

The lush … (read more)

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