Nostalgia for Countryland

Thuong nho dong que

Vietnam, Japan

1996

116 Min

Color

1.66:1

Vietnamese

Currently 4.3/5 Stars.
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SCR Đặng Nhật Minh, Huy Thiep Nguyen

CAST Van Lee, Ngoc Bao Ta, Huong Thuy

SOUND Huy Can Nguyen

Sundance (World Cinema), Rotterdam (Mekong Movies): Netpac Award, Toronto

Synopsis

Set in a small village in North Vietnam, a tale of awakening which traces a growing love triangle between Nham, an earnest and responsible 17-year-old country boy; the charming Ngu, his lonely and naive sister-in-law with whom he works closely in the fields; and Quyen, a stylishly vivacious expatriate who has just returned from the city, curious about life in the village where she spent her childhood. While all three characters are too reticent to unleash their feelings, the romance turns on the realization that this web of emotions is largely symbolic. Nham represents for Quyen an innocence and a past that she can’t recapture, just as she represents for Nham an urbanity and future prospects that he may never attain; and caught between the two is the delicate Ngu, left in the most desolate postion of positions. –Inbaseline

Director

Đặng Nhật Minh

Đặng Nhật Minh was born into a family of scholars and patriots in the ancient imperial capital of Hue in 1938.

His father, professor and wartime martyr Đặng Văn Ngữ, was a well-known doctor who was honored with the Hồ Chí Minh Award for his great medical contributions. Last year, Minh was also bestowed the same award for his contributions to the arts.

Minh translated Russian films before starting as a documentary filmmaker in 1965. He has also worked as a journalist, writer and served as the general secretary of the Vietnamese Cinema Association for 10 years from 1989.

He has won three Gold Lotus and four Silver Lotus awards for his films at the Vietnam Film Festival and many other prizes at other national film festivals.

He was the first Vietnamese director to win the prestigious Nikkei Asia prize for Culture in 1999.

Minh also received the Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contributions to the Asian film industry at the fifth Gwangju… read more