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38 out of 45 people found the following comment useful :-
They come into America, 16 December 2005

Author: anhedonia from Planet Earth

One of the least attractive aspects of the American movie industry is that while crap, such as "Fever Pitch" (the remake), "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Be Cool," get millions of dollars spent on marketing and promotion and are splashed on thousands of screens, a gem like "The Beautiful Country" gets barely released. Even then, it only hits the major cities.

I pretty much knew little to nothing about this film when I saw it. I vaguely recall seeing an Ebert & Roeper review of it, though I don't remember when they recommended it. What a completely wonderful surprise this one turned out to be.

"The Beautiful Country" is as much about the lengths to which immigrants will go to come to the United States as it is about a man's search for his father. Writer Sabina Murray (who apparently was hired by Terrence Malick and Edward R. Pressman to write a film about immigrants and came up with this idea) deftly uses Binh's (Damien Nguyen) quest as a device to depict the hardships of immigrants.

What ultimately makes "The Beautiful Country" a shattering experience is its complete unpretentiousness. There isn't a single emotion in this film that isn't earned. It's as much a testament to Murray's script as it is to the performances.

Nick Nolte might be the name actor in this film, but his role's relatively small. But, just as he did in "Hotel Rwanda" (2004), Nolte takes what's essentially a cameo and turns it into something memorable. He gives his character true depth.

The two surprises in this film are Nguyen and Bai Ling as Ling, a sexy Chinese refugee who is willing to do anything - anything - to fulfill her dreams. This is undoubtedly the best thing Bai Ling has done. Usually cast as caricatures or in minor roles, she imbues her character with genuine feeling. We understand and feel for this woman, her struggles and her passions.

Nguyen completely dominates the film. He doesn't do anything wrong. He underplays Binh so expertly, you'd think this was a veteran actor, not a novice. It's such an incredibly honest performance, you wouldn't for an instant believe Nguyen is a surfer boy from California. It's one of the year's best performances.

At a time when the news media and politicians seem to be concentrating on demonizing immigrants, it's important to see a film like this, to see why people leave their homelands, endure unimaginable suffering to come here. True, the immigrants in this film aren't of Arab descent or Haitian - we all know exactly how they'd be treated. But "The Beautiful Country" is all about the beauty and ugliness of life. It's also emotionally devastating at times. And what makes the film all the more remarkable is that the gut-wrenching scenes never come across as any sort of contrivance. There's no emotional blackmail here; the actors play the scenes straight and with a gesture, a simple word, manage to bring us to tears.

"The Beautiful Country" is a rare treasure, a film that never cheats us, never asks for what it hasn't earned and still manages to be deeply affecting. And in keeping with the rest of the film, the final scene is simply perfect.

A film like this deserves a much larger audience than it got. This is why we go to the movies.

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36 out of 46 people found the following comment useful :-
A movie beyond expectation, 26 March 2004

Author: Prashant Soegaard from Oslo, Norway

This movie is not specifically about the Vietnam war, but it gives a good perspective that is not biased in any way. It proves that justice and freedom are not present for all people, only the "lucky" ones. The people that are born in the western world. We take it all for granted what 70% of the population can just envy. It is usually said that if you work hard you will always become something significant. But after watching this movie, I understand that no matter how hard you work, if you are born poor you WILL most likely stay poor. The story follows Binh, a half Vietnamese and half American man. He isnt accepted in society in Vietnam just becasue of this hard fact "he is the enemy" and therefore he is worthless. This has become a major issue in Vietnam after the Vietnam war, but it has never been taken this seriously before. This is a very good movie! I would reccomend everyone to watch this, it gives everyone a humanitarian lesson about how we are all humanbeings no matter where we come from.

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33 out of 44 people found the following comment useful :-
Coming to America, 5 August 2005

Author: jotix100 from New York

"The Beautiful Country" is a film that tries to capture one of the worst problems in the world today, illegal people smuggling into that promised land that for some is the United States. Director Hans Peter Moland has created a film with the feeling of a documentary that follows the hard journey of a man in search of a father he never knew. Beautifully photographed by Stuart Drybargh, and with a haunting musical score by Zbigniew Preisner, "The Beautiful Country" could well have been subtitled "His Worst Nightmare".

We are introduced to Binh, a tall young man living in Viet Nam after the end of the war. The time is 1990 and we are offered a glimpse of Binh's life where his relatives, as well as the rest of the Vietnamese don't like him because of his mixed race. His father was an American G.I. who married his mother, Mai, but Binh never gets to meet him because Steve, as the father is named, disappeared from Saigon, never to be found again.

The film is Binh's odyssey to be reunited with the father he doesn't know. It's a horrific journey where Binh shows his own skills to endure the worst possible conditions to realize his dream of getting to meet a father he never knew. It's a homage to the surviving spirit of a man.

Damien Nguyen is Binh, the young mixed race Vietnamese man. He does an outstanding job under Mr. Moland's direction. Nick Nolte, as Steve has some good moments. The supporting cast makes an excellent contribution to the movie.

The film proves to what extent a determined man will go in order to get what he wants.

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27 out of 33 people found the following comment useful :-
Great movie, yet underrated, 7 August 2005

Author: Jason Pyke from United States

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.

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28 out of 39 people found the following comment useful :-
An Incredible Film, 1 May 2005

Author: jsmact from United States

I saw this film at the Tribeca Film Festival yesterday, and thought it was the best film in the festival. The cinematography was beautiful, the story was touching, and the characters were rich. There is one point in the movie where something tragic happens and it moved the entire audience to tears, including myself. The script is excellent, creative, and intelligent. The director did an extraordinary job and so did the lead actor, who had never made a feature film before. Tim Roth and Nick Nolte also give strong performances. I think this film will become a classic and end up winning some big awards. This is one of those epic monumental stories that should not be forgotten. An extraordinary and touching film.

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26 out of 38 people found the following comment useful :-
Beautiful movie, 23 March 2004

Author: Even Breines (citicencane@hotmail.com) from Oslo, Norway

Truly one the most beautiful movies i`ve ever seen. It feels very honest and true to the story about a young vieatnamise boy who goes to USA in search of his father. This journey is visually remarkable and shows what refugees have to deal with in search of a better life. It`s easy to see that Therence Malick is one of the producers behind this projeckt considering that it`s the pictures that speaks most, not the dialogue. Damien Nguyen gives a fantastic first performance as the leading character Binh. In supporting roles we find Nick Nolte, Tim Roth and Bai Ling who helps in a great way to bringing the story to life. Highly Recomended!

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28 out of 42 people found the following comment useful :-
a great movie, 20 March 2004

Author: kjell harald lund

This was a great movie. It was a sincere and a true movie. Compared to legally blond which is a moral about being blond, stupid and kindhearted is not how the world works like. This movie shows the cruelty and the sadness which is out there in the real world, and it was made in such a good way that i was about crying many times in the movie. This young man who has rejected by his own people, is seeking his destiny in going to America. He brings his much younger brother along with him, and this movies shows the struggle poor people from area with out hopes have to go through in fighting their rights for a better life. People takes advantages of their hopelessness and he and many others end up in this boat with some cynical people smugglers who want to use them as cheap labor and take advantage of the girls for prostitution to make a nice profit for them self. This movie is about hopes, sadness, exploitation of people, cynicism. This movie had also good names like Tim Roth, Bai Ling and Nick Nolte, who delivers a good job like always. I recommend you people to drop the plans of seeing some stupid love comedy for a change, and watch this movie which is very emotional and sad in a very artistic way.

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13 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
I understand the difficulty of the journey to America, 13 March 2007

Author: huckfinnsj@aol.com from United States

My son, Tam, and I were reunited on July 24, 2003, after a separation of 36 years. His mother, Huong, tried to flee Vietnam in May, 1975, but due to circumstances beyond her control, she missed the boat which was to take her and Tam to freedom. The communists caught the boat on the Saigon River, and sank it, killing all aboard. Huong finally decided to stick it out and worked hard to raise the money to come to the US. After arriving with Tam in 1994, she died of a stroke later that year. By a stroke of fortune, Tam, in 2003 found someone (an American) who could access my name in the Navy records. Within a few days of locating my name, the navy received a request to forward a letter from Tam. Needless to say, as I never knew if Tam or his mother had survived the war, I was stunned when I opened the large manila envelope from the Navy Department. The rest is history, and we are together. Tam lives and works near Los Angeles, and I recently retired and moved to a close-by state.

The movie, "The Beautiful Country", which I first viewed last night (3/12/07) really struck home. I feel like "I'm one in a million".

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15 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Austin Movie Show review, 6 August 2005

Author: leilapostgrad from Austin, TX

The children of American GI's in Vietnam were treated as second-class citizens – walking symbols of American control, destruction, and occupation. Binh (Damien Nguyen) lives with a foster family, can only eat their leftovers, and longs to find his own family, including the mother who couldn't support him and the American father he never knew. With only a picture of his parents, he leaves the village in search of his roots.

Binh finds his mother (and a young half brother) in Saigon, but after a deadly accident, he and his new brother are forced to flee the city and the country in search of America. Binh endures the purgatory of a Malaysian refugee camp and survives the hell of an illegal slave ship.

His travels are extraordinary and devastating, but the character of Binh is reason enough to see this incomparable epic. He has lived his life as an outcast, full of sorrow and shame. He rarely has the courage to look other people in the eye. But every catastrophic event in his journey brings him strength and courage, so that by the time he finds his father, he's man enough to face him. Or is he?

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7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the best movies of 2004, 13 July 2006

Author: abhattac from United States

Underrated by critics and virtually ignored by the mainstream film press, I found this to be one of the unexpected surprises of 2004. An amazing film covering the often grim fate of Amerasians (ie, children of American servicemen and Vietnamese mothers, often illegitimate and to the detriment and neglect of the mothers/children), one of the messy side-effects of a messy and mismanaged war.

This film was as haunting as it was brilliantly conceived and surprisingly well constructed for a low-budget film. I wish the actors all the best, as their tour-de-force performances captured the essence of the struggles any desperate person faces in trying to create a better life out from poverty, neglect, and despair. An absolute MUST-SEE for any serious independent/off-the-beaten-track film connoisseur....

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