New Vietnamese action movie: HUONG GA - RISE

Huong Ga - Rise (2014) - Director Cuong Ngo
Trailer of the movie :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75AKRsMH5V4

A rags to riches story of unusual circumstance. 'Huong Ga - Rise' is the story of Dieu. Chronicling the highs and lows of Vietnam's most notorious female gangsters, this is a woman's journey as she breaks the glass ceiling in a man's word, albeit, a much darker and dangerous existence. Shaded by the influence and lessons of the men in her life: Nhan her childhood sweetheart, her great unrequited love; Hung fifty shades of empty but a great physical attraction; Tung the man of her dreams, husband, lover and friend; and Tan - the gentle man who promises a simpler life. Each of the men in her life contribute to Dieu's great success (and failures) as she climbs to the top of Vietnam's gangster underworld.

It's quite new , so no full movie is available on youtube at the moment.

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Interesting Videos about Vietnam

1. The road story Vietnam - Georgy Tarasov

http://vimeo.com/117669654

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Funny videos about Hanoi - by Expats

I love to watch those videos. Funnyyyyyyyy! Listing here:

1. Song "Hanoi Boogie" - Joe (Dâu Tây)

The lyric of Hanoi Boogie

I used to drive around this lake I did
I did I did each Saturday with you
(girls) With you, with you ka-choo ka-choo koo
Japan on to Korea, where we'd write down our ideas who loved who – ooo ooo ooo

We'd drive by Hanoi Amsterdam
I'd buy you chocolate ice cream with all of my dong
(girls) Your dong, your ding-a-dang-a-long-dong
I wouldn't dare to mention that I needed your attention all day long – all day long

Chorus
And we do the Hanoi boogie
It's lemon and soda, Turtle Pagoda

Oh yeah, baby shimmy shimmy shake
There's love in the autumn, ice at the bottom of my cup, my cup, my coffee coffee cup

Verse two
One day that I remember well,
The sun was turning all red and falling all down
(girls) All down, all down, all down behind the old town
We stopped and then we went in to a park named after Lenin walked around – then sat down

You asked me for a kiss
I felt so shy to tell you the truth I didn't know how
(girls) Know how, I'm pretty sure you know now!
So I just sat beside you like a frightened baby tiger thinking wow – oh meow

Verse three
The days are slowly marching on,
The city that I adore is marching on too
(girls) Ooo-ooo Hanoi is moving on too
So take the stage and take your bows and take your birthday number thousand make it true – old and new

Still drive around this lake I do,
Sill Saturday still me and still beside you
(girls) Still you, still ka-choo ka-choo koo!
Some changes to the motor from a wave to a Toyota but still blue – colour blue!

2. A parody by Asley and Anemi

3. Rap "Ối giời ơi" - by Ian Paynton

4. Hanoi Timelapse - by Pim Roes

5. What is Tết?

6. Hot Vietnam Date - by Joe Nation

7.  Hanoi- Vietnam (video made by denniscallan - Feb 2011)

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Good Vietnamese movies with English subtitles

A foreign friend just asked me to suggest him some great Vietnamese movies, of course which have English subtitles that people who can not understand our language can watch.

Here are some movies about Vietnam that I enjoy:
1. FLOATING LIVES (Cánh đồng bất tận), Nguyễn Phan Quang Bình

2. THE QUIET AMERICAN (Người Mỹ trầm lặng), Phillip Noyce
An older British reporter vies against a young American for the affections of a Vietnamese beauty.  
Trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXTXGfMFxR4

Full movie:
 

3.HEAVEN AND EARTH, (Trời và Đất), Oliver Stone
The final movie in Oliver Stone's Vietnam trilogy follows the true story of a Vietnamese village girl who survives a life of suffering and hardship during and after the Vietnam war. As a freedom fighter, a hustler, young mother, a sometime prostitute, and the wife of a US. marine, the girl's relationships with men suggests an analogy of Vietnam as Woman and the U.S. as Man.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpjxuJV6FfY
Full movie:

4. THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA (Mùi đu đủ xanh), Trần Anh Hùng
A little girl, Mui, went to a house as a new servant. The mother still mourns the death of her daughter, who would have been Mui's age. In her mind she treated Mui as her daughter. 10 years later Mui (now a young woman) was sent to another family, a young pianist and his wife. The musician falls in love with the peasant, he taught her literacy and they eventually married. A movie about a girl's life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNlp_0sSAwA

5. ADRIFT (Chơi vơi), Bùi Thạc Chuyên
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjLsVagVRVc

6. BUFFALO BOY (Mùa len trâu), Minh Nguyen-Vo

Set along the southern coast of Vietnam during the French occupation in the 1940s, water is everywhere, giving life and bringing decay and rot. Kim is 15; his father and step-mother have two buffalo, their lifeline as subsistence rice farmers. During the rainy season, there's no grass and the buffalo are starving. Kim volunteers to take the beasts inland to find food. On this coming-of-age journey, Kim sees men mistreat women, men fight with men, and French taxes rob the poor. He works for Lap, a buffalo herder whose past is entangled with Kim's parents, and he makes friends who will lead him to his place in the world.

7. PAO'S STORY (Chuyện của Pao), Ngô Quang Hải
Set in a breath-taking primitive landscape in the mountainous provinces of Vietnam, the film tells the story of a Hmong tribe girl named Pao. She was raised by her stepmother, for her real mother left her when she was little. One day, her stepmother dies in an accident, and she begins to track down her birth mother. But her journey turns out to disclose an unsealed sentimental drama of the family in the past
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTDGWUFzOi8

8. EM BE HA NOI (Em bé Hà Nội), Hải Ninh
Filmed as soon as the bombing B52 in Hanoi, the film is a touching meaningful story of  citizen life during years of the American Empire's destructive war.

The film follows the journey to evacuate and find the father of the two sisters Thuy Duong Ngoc Ha after their mother died, the house in Kham Thien also was broken after the B52 bomb. On the way to find father, Ngoc Ha witnessed the ferocity of the war and the two sisters met kind people..

I couldn't find the trial with English subtitle on Youtube but pretty sure this famous movie is available in DVD with English subtitle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gI4Aqyt0v8

9. VERTICAL RAY OF THE SUN (Mùa hè chiều thẳng đứng), Trần Anh Hùng
With the brilliant Vietnamese summer as a setting Vertical Ray of the Sun is beautiful from beginning to end. The plot centres around three sisters, two of whom are happily married (or so it appears). The youngest sister is single and living with her cute older brother, whom she is desperately in love with. A second sister is married to a man who has another woman and child elsewhere whom he loves just as much as his wife -with a few conditions, she agrees to carry on with the marriage. The third sister and her husband are overjoyed to discover she is pregnant, and though he is tempted, her husband remains loyal to her. Charming, slow-paced, face value, family saga film.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsoCijtAYbY 

10. SANDY LIFE (Đời cát), Nguyễn Thanh Vân
For twenty years, Canh has lived in North Vietnam, unable to return to his home in the south where his wife is waiting for him. She is happy to reunite with her husband until she learns that he has married a young woman in the north and has a child by her. The love triangle becomes more complicated.  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QkFS7C-AnI 

 Keep an eye on the post as I will update as long as I find out more interesting movies about Vietnam. As Vietnamese cinematheque is non-stop growing, we are waiting for new artwork.

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dear Hanoi

Welcome to my little corner where I share things about Hanoi and my life.
It's clear that Hanoi is changing, in a good and bad way.
I'm observing...

While walking around Hoan Kiem lake

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