Rom

This was way too long, even at the mere 79 min runtime. It was just the same thing over and over again, and it got boring and depressing. It didn't even make much sense how any of these numbers written on a piece of paper go towards betting. You will struggle finishing this one. This would've been better as a documentary. I will say though that it was well shot and certainly shows the slums of Vietnam. The amateur kid actors performed well. Nvm all the bogus high reviews, it's a generous 5/10 from me.

Very good film in which the characters are struggling to survive in a bleak, poverty-stricken part of Ho Chi Minh City that is controlled by a ruthless gangster. The main character, Nòm, is an orphan with dreams of reuniting with the parents who abandoned him after they were evicted from their home.

He earns money by running daily lottery bets to and from bookies and persists despite endemic violence, treachery, and literal hunger. He is wiley and relatively street savvy, having had to fend for himself for the last 6 years.

The movie itself seems to expose the seamy side of a capitalist society that provides little or no support to its poorest members, especially in a country founded on Communist principles.

Tran Thanh Huy's fresh and exceptional film is a testament to the blossoming of Vietnamese cinema. His off-kilter shots, handheld moves, and guerrilla camera sequences shot on Saigon's busy streets underscore the fragility of street kid existence and the tragedy of physically and emotionally-challenged "lost" youth.

In this case, 14-year old Rom -- a middleman for illegal lottery ticket sales to impoverished gamblers willing to mortgage their rickety tenement homes for a long shot at riches. It all goes down in a corrugated sheeting world of back alleys, gangsters, superstition and Rom's quest to find his parents who abandoned him as a boy.

It's a brutally competitive life for Rom (Tran Anh) and Phuk (Anh Tu) who egg on customers with claims of winning numbers. A correct guess results in big tips. A wrong one earns a pummeling. Both actors deserve kudos for their portrayals of streetwise adolescents in physically-demanding roles. Thien Kim is perfect as Mrs. Ba, a grandmotherly senior addicted to betting.

Vietnamese censors' slashing of "Rom" to 79 minutes in an act of cinematic vandalism adds to the film's mystique and earns its producers a badge of courage for having bypassed bureaucratic permission to screen it at the 24th Busan International Film Festival where it took top honors, a first for Vietnam. Hopefully, a director's cut will surface someday.

Tana Schembori and Juan Carlos Maneglia touched nicely on similar tropes in 2017's Paraguayan caper film "26 Boxes," but "Rom" now owns the genre.

First, im a Vietnamese. I lived in Saigon (HCM city) for 4 years, since 2012-2016, and Saigon in my memories is a beautiful city. People live with hope, and joy. But in the movie, everyone in this movie do not has a job. They just gambling, gangs??? The judges are forgein, so they misunderstand about my country. The award is a joke, just like Messi Ballor O'dor in 2010.

You should watch Rom similar movies. Examples: Hereditary, Burning, Midsommar, American Psycho. No opening nor ending, confusing content, ... The movie isn't bad, you just don't have enough knowledge to understand it.