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| To the DVD Review page |
 BUFFALO
BOY (First
Run Features) 98 minutes. Drama. In Vietnamese with English subtitles.
Not rated. Growing up in Vietnam in the 1940s, a teenage boy, Kim, must
take over for his ill father and save his family’s two starving buffalo
during the flood season. With the two buffalo in tow, Kim leaves his
family and hooks up with a clan of buffalo herders who are hired to bring
buffalo to food in order to save them from starvation. Trudging through
neck high water and fighting off rival buffalo herders, Kim, quickly grows
up and learns the trade. Seeing the money the herders are making, but not
agreeing with the high level of scumminess, Kim decides to start his own
buffalo business. It is during these times that our hero learns a whole
lot about himself, his past, and is forced to accept more responsibility
than he ever dreamed.
For a movie whose tempo is pretty mild, the intensity is very
high from start to finish. Since most of the movie takes place on the
flooded plains of Vietnam, the production must have been tough and I bet
the cast and crew put up with a lot of crap during the shoot. The
landscape shots and scenery is stunningly hypnotic, but I have to wonder
how the hell people actually lived like that back in the day (perhaps they
still do in some parts). The way the story opens and closes is a tad
creepy, but it’s a great vehicle to get the movie going. Everything
about Buffalo Boy is top notch and if you dig foreign movies, I
highly recommend it. – Denis Sheehan
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