The Beautiful Country

The children of American GI's in Vietnam were treated as second-class citizens – walking symbols of American control, destruction, and occupation. Binh (Damien Nguyen) lives with a foster family, can only eat their leftovers, and longs to find his own family, including the mother who couldn't support him and the American father he never knew. With only a picture of his parents, he leaves the village in search of his roots.

Binh finds his mother (and a young half brother) in Saigon, but after a deadly accident, he and his new brother are forced to flee the city and the country in search of America. Binh endures the purgatory of a Malaysian refugee camp and survives the hell of an illegal slave ship.

His travels are extraordinary and devastating, but the character of Binh is reason enough to see this incomparable epic. He has lived his life as an outcast, full of sorrow and shame. He rarely has the courage to look other people in the eye. But every catastrophic event in his journey brings him strength and courage, so that by the time he finds his father, he's man enough to face him. Or is he?

Classic tale of redemption, brimming with drama and a lead character that says little, but who you quickly relate to and associate yourself with. Starts of kind of slow, but after 15-20 minutes, the movie picks up and never slows down, with high drama and classic storytelling. A must-see. The movie is set to the backdrop of the aftermath of the Vietnam war in Vietnam, and portrays the poverty-stricken environment they are forced to live in. It then moves on to show the desperation of would-be American immigrants fleeing from one land that doesn't want them to sneak into another. After watching this movie, you will definitely have a greater appreciation for what some immigrants have to go through.

Truly one the most beautiful movies i`ve ever seen. It feels very honest and true to the story about a young vieatnamise boy who goes to USA in search of his father. This journey is visually remarkable and shows what refugees have to deal with in search of a better life. It`s easy to see that Therence Malick is one of the producers behind this projeckt considering that it`s the pictures that speaks most, not the dialogue. Damien Nguyen gives a fantastic first performance as the leading character Binh. In supporting roles we find Nick Nolte, Tim Roth and Bai Ling who helps in a great way to bringing the story to life. Highly Recomended!

My son, Tam, and I were reunited on July 24, 2003, after a separation of 36 years. His mother, Huong, tried to flee Vietnam in May, 1975, but due to circumstances beyond her control, she missed the boat which was to take her and Tam to freedom. The communists caught the boat on the Saigon River, and sank it, killing all aboard. Huong finally decided to stick it out and worked hard to raise the money to come to the US. After arriving with Tam in 1994, she died of a stroke later that year. By a stroke of fortune, Tam, in 2003 found someone (an American) who could access my name in the Navy records. Within a few days of locating my name, the navy received a request to forward a letter from Tam. Needless to say, as I never knew if Tam or his mother had survived the war, I was stunned when I opened the large manila envelope from the Navy Department. The rest is history, and we are together. Tam lives and works near Los Angeles, and I recently retired and moved to a close-by state.

The movie, "The Beautiful Country", which I first viewed last night (3/12/07) really struck home. I feel like "I'm one in a million".

This was a great movie. It was a sincere and a true movie. Compared to legally blond which is a moral about being blond, stupid and kindhearted is not how the world works like. This movie shows the cruelty and the sadness which is out there in the real world, and it was made in such a good way that i was about crying many times in the movie. This young man who has rejected by his own people, is seeking his destiny in going to America. He brings his much younger brother along with him, and this movies shows the struggle poor people from area with out hopes have to go through in fighting their rights for a better life. People takes advantages of their hopelessness and he and many others end up in this boat with some cynical people smugglers who want to use them as cheap labor and take advantage of the girls for prostitution to make a nice profit for them self. This movie is about hopes, sadness, exploitation of people, cynicism. This movie had also good names like Tim Roth, Bai Ling and Nick Nolte, who delivers a good job like always. I recommend you people to drop the plans of seeing some stupid love comedy for a change, and watch this movie which is very emotional and sad in a very artistic way.