The Abandoned Field: Free Fire Zone

This film begins with a young man named "Ba Do" (Toi Lam) who temporarily leaves his wife "Sau Xoa" (Thuy An Nguyen), and a young child living in the swamps of the Mekong Delta to join the local Viet Cong forces fighting in that region. As it so happens, the American military coincidentally decides to clear that exact area of all its inhabitants, which subsequently increases the Viet Cong's determination to maintain a presence there even more. Needless to say, this has a direct impact on both Ba Do and Sau Xoa as they struggle against both hostile military action and the challenges of living in such a difficult environment. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that--despite the limited budget and the lack of any well-known actors--this is as good a film about the Vietnam War as any that has been produced, as it manages to capture the hardships experienced by the people who lived in that area during this time. Admittedly, although it neglects to showcase the cruelty inflicted by the Viet Cong on anyone who refused to cooperate with them, given the political climate within Vietnam after the war, that probably goes without saying. Be that as it may, despite the faults already mentioned, I was impressed with this film and recommend it to those viewers interested in a movie of this sort, and I have rated it accordingly. Above average.

As first reviewer says, an unusual and absorbing story. Unusual in that it's nuanced. Americans are not depicted with anger, despite only four years' passage since the war's end in 1975. Also, prominent role of women, and one heroine in particular, which actually is not unusual in Red China war movies of this period, though they tend to be propagandistic, and these Vietnamese picture is not propaganda, unless The Longest Day is. Straightforward depiction of what the VC had to do, and the Yanks as well. As a battle film, excellent in showing the effective VC guerilla tactics, rising up from the rice paddies to shoot down huge Huey choppers whose crews couldn't possibly see the enemy below. You get a sense of the futility of the U.S. military mission, and also the acute vulnerability of the Vietnamese population. The horrors of war, with no ideology. Well done. D.O., Toronto

To an American audience, "The Abandoned Field: Free-Fire Zone" is an unusual movie in many ways. First, this Vietnamese film tells a story of the Vietnam War through the eyes of Viet Cong guerillas. Instead of the camera hovering above the ground in the U.S. helicopters, it's in the rice paddies looking up at those lethal machines. Second, it depicts the effects of war on a family (mother, father, and child) whose daily life is made unpredictable and uncertain by the whims of battle. Granted, the father and mother are VC guerillas who voluntarily put themselves – and their child – in harm's way, but this touches upon another uncommon element: Hollywood audiences aren't used to seeing a woman (the wife) as a protagonist in a war drama. These qualities alone would make "The Abandoned Field" of great interest, but the film also does more. This movie is quite well made. The story is briskly paced, but it still takes time for quiet observations of the couple's frugal family life as they hide from the choppers. The film's visual surface appears equally frugal. The hand-held black & white cinematography gives the images a rough-hewn feel that captures the spirit of the 1960s New Wave and resembles early newsreels of the war. This visual approach might have been completely determined by the economic realities of the time, but the film's low-tech look seems to stand in defiant opposition to Hollywood's high-gloss surface. It's as though director Hong Sen Nguyen wanted to utilize a "guerilla" visual style to match the content of his story. Of course, being from Vietnam, "The Abandoned Field" wants us to side with the guerillas, but the movie also acknowledges the humanity of an American soldier and presents him as an equal victim of the war. Certainly, the movie is more even-handed than most American films about Vietnam, especially those of the Rambo/Chuck Norris variety. The movie's biggest drawback for U.S. audiences is that its American characters are played by Vietnamese actors (some of whom look racially mixed) speaking in the Vietnamese language. Of course, this instance of unbelievable casting arose from Vietnam's lack of access at the time to professional American talent. The American viewer simply has to accept it as a convention. Another admirer of "The Abandoned Field" is director Oliver Stone, who also bemoans the film's lack of authenticity in things American. He once remarked at a UCLA panel that he wished he could have been the film's technical advisor. But its inaccuracies didn't interfere with his enjoyment of the movie. (Stone would go on to direct his own war drama told from the perspective of a Vietnamese woman: 1993's "Heaven & Earth.") "The Abandoned Field" offers American audiences an unusual and absorbing story. Coming to the movie with an open mind, viewer