In our current climate of refugee crises spreading across Europe and beyond, Hong Kong New Wave director Ann Hui’s Boat People offers a timely reminder of the real struggles that displaced people face while fleeing oppression.
Unlike the spate of Hollywood films in the late 1970s and ‘80s that dealt with the Vietnam experience primarily from the point of view of the wounded American psyche (The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Platoon), Hui’s 1982 film focuses on the Vietnamese lives disrupted by the brutal Communist regime that took control of the country following the fall of South Vietnam in 1975.
Boat People opens with a non-narrated sequence in which a man with a camera whirls around snapping off shots while victorious military forces roll along a street in Da Nang where onlookers cheer or simply observe. At the end of the scene, the man witnesses a crippled child hobbling away from the celebration—a darker note that foreshadows what this Japanese photographer named Shiomi Akutagawa (George Lam) will find when he returns to Da Nang three years later, in 1978, to record the progress that the country has made since reunification.
Shepherded from place to place by his handlers—including to a euphemistically termed New Economic Zone, where happy healthy children sing the praises of Ho Chi Minh—Akutagawa increasingly chafes at his leash until he is finally allowed to explore the city by himself. Almost immediately, he witnesses far different situations from the official story, as he bonds with the family of a widow forced into prostitution in order to raise her family.
Akutagawa is particularly drawn to the oldest child, Cam Nuong (Season Ma), a sassy 14-year-old who opens Akutagawa’s eyes to what is really happening in Vietnam. The girl and her siblings engage in horrific activities to earn a little money, ranging from rushing to the “chicken farm” where they pick over the bloodied bodies of newly executed dissidents for any valuables, to collecting scrap in areas riddled with unexploded mines. The latter example also looms large in the connected story of another figure aided by Akutagawa: To Minh (Andy Lau), who is desperately trying to raise money for passage on an illegal boat out of Vietnam; days before he is scheduled to leave, he is assigned to work with a crew who crawl through a field on their bellies in search of mines.
As Akutagawa becomes increasingly enmeshed with locals, his own life is threatened—he is beaten and jailed before his fate is determined in the film’s shocking conclusion.
Boat People is a grim film, no question, but it also finds moments of humor and charm, especially during a wonderful sequence in which Akutagawa photographs Cam Nuong posing in the heavy rain (contemporary viewers’ antennae may be on high alert due to the age differences between the two, but their relationship is asexual).
Filmed in China with the full cooperation of the Chinese government (which was antagonistic towards Vietnam), Boat People was at the center of controversy upon its initial release, with many calling it anti-Vietnam propaganda, which Hui denied. Seen today, it feels much more like a democratic cry for freedom in the face of a totalitarian regime.
Debuting on DVD and Blu-ray, Boat People is presented with a fine 4K digital transfer and extras including a new conversation between Ann Hui and filmmaker Stanley Kwan (who was assistant director on Boat People); the 2020 documentary Keep Rolling on Hui, made by Man Lim-chung, Hui’s longtime production designer and art director; Hui’s 1997 documentary self-portrait As Time Goes By; a press conference from the 1983 Cannes International Film Festival; and a booklet with essays by film critic Justin Chang and scholar Vinh Nguyen.
Highly recommended.