Cyclo (film)
| Cyclo | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Trần Anh Hùng |
| Produced by | Christophe Rossignon |
| Written by | Tran Anh Hung |
| Starring |
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| Music by | Tôn-Thât Tiêt |
| Cinematography |
Benoît Delhomme Laurence Trémolet |
| Edited by |
Nicole Dedieu Claude Ronzeau |
| Distributed by |
New Yorker Video (Region 1 DVD) Gaumont (Region 2 DVD) |
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Release date
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September 1995 (premiere at VFF) 22 March 1996 (UK) 2 August 1996 (U.S.) 19 September 1996 (Australia) |
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Running time
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123 minutes |
| Country | France Vietnam |
| Language | Vietnamese |
Cyclo (Vietnamese: Xích Lô) is a 1995 film by Tran Anh Hung (who had made The Scent of Green Papaya). It stars Lê Văn Lộc, Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Trần Nữ Yên Khê.
The film won the Golden Lion at the 52nd Venice International Film Festival. It is about the hard lives of the labor force in early 1990s Ho Chi Minh City, and how people come under the influence of crime. The film is considered hard to understand because of abstracts and wordless communications. However, in a review, Janet Maslin (1995) asserted that this style, which is typical of the film director, makes the movie more memorable and successful.
The movie is about an 18-year-old boy who has been orphaned after his father died from a truck crash while he was in his usual work. The father was a cyclo driver, and his desire was the son would have a better life than he had. However, after the father’s death, because of the family hardship, the boy has to take over the father’s job, pedaling a rental cyclo around busy streets of Sai Gon city to earn a living. Living with the boy in a small house, there are his old grandfather, who repairs tires despite of his failing health, his little sister, who shines shoes for restaurant customers in the neighborhood, and his older sister, who carries water at a local market.
Their poor but peaceful lives are jeopardized when the cyclo is stolen by a gang. Having no money to pay for the robbed cyclo, the boy is forced to join a criminal organization and is under the supervision of a brooding gang leader, who is also a poet.
Meanwhile, his older sister also comes under the influence of the poet and becomes a prostitute. They develop feelings for each other. She visits his house where he is beaten by his father, who is furious for the profession he has taken. The poet brings the cyclo driver to Mr. Lullaby, who kills a victim by slitting his throat while singing a lullaby.
Ho Chi Minh City is hit by unrest as different gangs start fighting with each other. A truck carrying a helicopter crashes on a busy city-street. The cyclo driver blinds one eye of the man who stole his cyclo, but manages to remain unseen by anyone. He pays another visit to his lady employer to pay a part of his debt, but she refuses and becomes busy with her retarded son who has covered himself with yellow paint.
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Wikipedia