This review will be more on the personal side, as I believe other reviews from critics have already said all there is to say. As a Vietnamese person (born and raised in Vietnam), I find this documentary very impressive and delicately done. On the surface it's about a teenager who's fighting against an outdated tradition of bride kidnapping - but the mindset portrayed echoes the gender imbalance and discrimination that my own mother and her grandmother went through, just one/two generations ago. And so I feel deeply sympathetic and surprisingly relatable to the characters.
I'm not sure how a Western or Western-educated audience would understand the nuances of the dynamics of the family. To me it echoes my own relationship with my parents - they've had such a hard life, and it's not a cultural norm for them to be emotionally aware about their vulnerability and feelings with their children. So they switch between words of advice from one moment to shouting harsh words in the next. I don't doubt their love, but there are certain things they cannot escape from.
A little about the director: She came from another ethnic minority herself (Tày) while the ethnic majority of Vietnamese people are the Kinh people.
As for the fate of Di after the film: According to an interview, she got married at 17, to a person she loves.
I'm not sure how a Western or Western-educated audience would understand the nuances of the dynamics of the family. To me it echoes my own relationship with my parents - they've had such a hard life, and it's not a cultural norm for them to be emotionally aware about their vulnerability and feelings with their children. So they switch between words of advice from one moment to shouting harsh words in the next. I don't doubt their love, but there are certain things they cannot escape from.
A little about the director: She came from another ethnic minority herself (Tày) while the ethnic majority of Vietnamese people are the Kinh people.
As for the fate of Di after the film: According to an interview, she got married at 17, to a person she loves.