Post by OleWiseOne on Mar 11, 2005 2:37:13 GMT -5
Wow, I'm impressed, Veronica! You've really done your research! 
You're a good TL fan. When are you going to watch all of TK's movies? 
Cyclo is really not a movie about Tony's character. Cyclo, or Xich Lo in Vietnamese, is the bike that carries the passengers. The story is about the cyclo driver and the poet was a character that cyclo driver gets involved with through his work, etc.
I agree with you about the cyclo driver's sister - she is extremely annoying. Unfortunately she's not going away anytime soon because she is the wife of the director, the wonderfully talented Tran Anh Hung (director). And she was also in his most recent movie, Vertical Ray of the Sun ... an astondingly beautifully shot film. That means she has been in every one of his movies.
For me she is so annoying because she's always acting so coy - we have a word for it in Vietnamese and it means something like vain, and it drives me up the wall! But fortunately, in CYCLO, she's not the main character - so it's not as distracting as it could've been.
I liked Tony in this movie. He had to learn Vietnamese for this role, his native language is Cantonese, so it wasn't easy, I'm sure. I think part of the reason he has so little dialogue is because it's not a language he knows how to speak. He just memorized his lines in VIetnamese - I wonder how much he understood what he was saying. I'm sure it was interpreted for him though. Tony actually did a good job speaking Vietnamese, as I native speaker, I understood what he was saying!
Goes to show ya that Tony is the real deal, if he can transcend the language that he's speaking to let you understand the emotion he's trying tell, he's a great actor. But for me this movie belonged to the young man who played the cyclo driver, Le Van Loc.
He's not an actor, just someone that the director thought would fit the role. He was just awesome. His face told the story of his whole, short and difficult life. Seeing the outlines of his ribs when he takes off his shirt, I just want to cry. You can just tell that he's had such a rough life for someone so young, there's no hope in his face, just existence. He looks 50 but is really just 18.
I loved this movie. So powerful. So poetic. The images are stunning and thought provoking. It's a movie that sticks with me - I remember the scene with the cyclo driver in blue paint, the fish in his mouth. I remember the scene with his sister in the club & "Creep" by Radiohead is playing in the background. I remember a scene with young children & a poem's being recited.
It's a memorable movie but not a happy one, but then the boy's life was not a happy life. But what the film told me was that reality can be really grim, but there are moments of poetry that the film captured that might speak for the moments of poetry in anyone's life, no matter how down & out.
A movie worth seeing.
You're a good TL fan. When are you going to watch all of TK's movies? 
Cyclo is really not a movie about Tony's character. Cyclo, or Xich Lo in Vietnamese, is the bike that carries the passengers. The story is about the cyclo driver and the poet was a character that cyclo driver gets involved with through his work, etc.
I agree with you about the cyclo driver's sister - she is extremely annoying. Unfortunately she's not going away anytime soon because she is the wife of the director, the wonderfully talented Tran Anh Hung (director). And she was also in his most recent movie, Vertical Ray of the Sun ... an astondingly beautifully shot film. That means she has been in every one of his movies.
For me she is so annoying because she's always acting so coy - we have a word for it in Vietnamese and it means something like vain, and it drives me up the wall! But fortunately, in CYCLO, she's not the main character - so it's not as distracting as it could've been.
I liked Tony in this movie. He had to learn Vietnamese for this role, his native language is Cantonese, so it wasn't easy, I'm sure. I think part of the reason he has so little dialogue is because it's not a language he knows how to speak. He just memorized his lines in VIetnamese - I wonder how much he understood what he was saying. I'm sure it was interpreted for him though. Tony actually did a good job speaking Vietnamese, as I native speaker, I understood what he was saying!
Goes to show ya that Tony is the real deal, if he can transcend the language that he's speaking to let you understand the emotion he's trying tell, he's a great actor. But for me this movie belonged to the young man who played the cyclo driver, Le Van Loc.
He's not an actor, just someone that the director thought would fit the role. He was just awesome. His face told the story of his whole, short and difficult life. Seeing the outlines of his ribs when he takes off his shirt, I just want to cry.
You can just tell that he's had such a rough life for someone so young, there's no hope in his face, just existence. He looks 50 but is really just 18.I loved this movie. So powerful. So poetic. The images are stunning and thought provoking. It's a movie that sticks with me - I remember the scene with the cyclo driver in blue paint, the fish in his mouth. I remember the scene with his sister in the club & "Creep" by Radiohead is playing in the background. I remember a scene with young children & a poem's being recited.
It's a memorable movie but not a happy one, but then the boy's life was not a happy life. But what the film told me was that reality can be really grim, but there are moments of poetry that the film captured that might speak for the moments of poetry in anyone's life, no matter how down & out.
A movie worth seeing.
