Boat People
Description
Shiomi Akutagawa, a Japanese photojournalist (George Lam), is sent to Vietnam after the war to document life under the Communist government and its “new economic zones.” After seeing a deceptive presentation staged by officials, he befriends a poverty-stricken Danang family who show him the true realities of life under an oppressive regime, including police corruption and brutality and a starving citizenry. A Chinese woman involved with the black-market trade (Cora Miao) introduces him to a petty thief (Andy Lau in one of his first film roles) looking to escape. Akutagawa is moved to help, but tragedy ensues. The sources for the film’s story and the stories within the film, Hui has stated, stem from the hundreds of interviews she conducted with Vietnamese refugees beginning in 1978, when the boats that successfully made the journey were flooding into Hong Kong harbor. The film won numerous international prizes, five Hong Kong Film Awards (including Best Picture), and is considered one of the best Chinese-language films of all time.
Though Ann Hui is best known as one of the Hong Kong New Wave’s most critically acclaimed directors, she is also a producer, writer, and actress. She began her work in cinema as an assistant to the director King Hu and later made several short documentaries for television. Her first film The Secret was made in 1979 and won international acclaim. Though she has made forays into action films and comedies, she is known for telling socially conscious stories, often about cultural displacement. Boat People is the third film in what is known loosely as her “Vietnam trilogy,” the other films being Boy from Vietnam (1978) and The Story of Woo Viet (1981). In 2012, she was given a lifetime achievement award at the Asian Film Awards.
Film Details
Language Cantonese
Year 1982
Runtime 110
Country Hong Kong
Director Ann Hui
Producer Meng Xia
Writer Kang Chien Chiu
Editor Kin Kin
Cinematographer David Chung, Zong Ji Huang, Chung Kay Wong
Music Wing-Fai Law
Cast Shui-Chiu Gan, Jialing Hao, Meiying Jia
Print Source North Carolina School of the Arts Film Archive