'Three Seasons' Is 5-Star By Desson Howe Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 14, 1999

Zoe Bui, right, has difficulty accepting Don Duong's support. (October) Director: Tony Bui Cast: Don Duong; Ngoc Hiep Nguyen; Manh Cuong Tran; Harvey Keitel; Zoe Bui Running Time: 1 hour, 53 minutes Contains sexual situations

My noisy affirmations continued throughout the movie:

The gorgeous composition of a floating canopy of lotuses and green leaf pads on the water, for instance.

The aching look in a young Vietnamese street-seller's eyes, when he realizes his crate of cheap watches and lighters is missing.

The plaintive burst of song from Vietnamese women plucking those floating flowers to sell on the streets of Saigon.

And the gentle demeanor of Hai (Don Duong), a cyclo driver whose devotion (and free rides) to a working girl called Lan (Zoe Bui) is almost religious.

These and other grace notes fill this complex drama, which uses the new Vietnam as an atmospheric setting for four superbly interwoven stories.

Bui had to shoot his film mindful of Vietnamese censors. But the tampering was minimal, according to Bui. Although Western commercial influences in present-day Saigon are hardly extolled, and the Vietnam War figures rather diplomatically in the story, "Three Seasons" mostly bypasses political stumping.

Bui, who wrote the script with Timothy Linh Bui, is primarily concerned with Vietnamese characters who live, work and yearn for emotional connections just like anybody else.

The film does deal with the American experience through James Hager (Harvey Keitel), a Marine who returns to Saigon to trace the daughter he fathered. He spends his days searching for her or staring mournfully at a restaurant, which used to be the GI pickup bar where he met his elusive daughter's mother.

Hager wants to do right by his grown daughter and, in his words, "make some sort of peace with this place." But his story is just one strand of this tale.

We spend much more time with Hai, the aforementioned cyclo driver, who becomes so enamored and protective of the prostitute Lan, he waits outside the hotels where she operates, to ensure she has a ride home. Lan, for whom love has become a crude cash transaction, finds it difficult to accept such unconditional support.

We also meet the young Kien An (Nguyen Ngoc Hiep), a sweet-souled woman who joins a group of lotus sellers and whose song charms the heart of Dao (Tran Manh Cuong), the hermetic, leprous poet and teacher who is her boss.

When Dao invites Kien An to his large house, they discover a mutual love of poetry. She helps the old man – whose fingers are lost to the disease – by writing down his newest compositions. And in the shadowy rooms of Dao's home, a touching bond is born.

When Woody (Nguyen Huu Duoc), the street boy who sells watches, tries peddling to Hager in a bar, the Marine invites him to have a beer. Lulled to sleep by the drink, Woody awakens to find the crate – and Hager – missing.

The boy begins a frenzied search throughout the city, trying to retrieve his only means of livelihood, and wondering if the American is responsible for the theft.

Bui, the Americanized son of a South Vietnamese air force officer who was airlifted from Saigon in 1975, has made a triumphant return to his past, by embracing a hopeful future. These characters may live in the shadows of Saigon's big, Western-style hotels, but they live their lives with unspoken, home-grown dignity. It's a sweet privilege to be witness to such quietly fascinating chronicles and people. If ever there was a movie to begin to bridge the traumatic chasm left by the Vietnam War, this one comes the closest so far.