Don't listen to the negative reviews

Absolutely Fantastic

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Given the IMDb score and the many high praise reviews that this movie had gotten, I must say that I had expected something quite more from the movie. That being said, then don't get me wrong, because "Three Seasons" is a beautiful and entertaining movie.There are several layers and stories told in the movie. Stories that are all connected together. Some better and more interesting than others. "Three Seasons" tells the story of an American looking for his daughter - this was the least interesting of the stories. It also tells the story of Woody, a street urchin who thinks the American stole his case of tourist trinkets. While this story is better than the searching for the daughter story, it just seemed a bit too shallow. "Three Seaons" is also the story of Hai, a cycle driver who gives a ride to Lan, a hotel callgirl, whom he ends up falling in love with. This was a good story, albeit quite generic, but this story was really well-told on the screen. And finally, it is also the story of Kien An, a young woman hired to harvest lotus flowers, who end up bringing a glimmer of life back to a reclusive man stricken with leprosy. This was the most touching and beautiful of all the stories told in "Three Seasons"."Three Seasons" does have some really good acting performances by the Vietnamese cast. Ngoc Hiep Nguyen (playing Kien An) stole the screen with her performance. But Duong Don (playing Hai) and Diep Bui (playing Lan) were also putting on very memorable performances.This is a story and character driven movie, so it might come off as a slow and dull movie to some. But it is a beautiful movie on different layers, and it is well-worth watching.

This film is a quiet, thoughtful and engaging look at a cross-section of modern Vietnam...It takes us through the lives of several people in a careful and moving way, but it avoids being sappy or sentimental by being honest.This film is beautifully written and filmed. Sometimes sad, sometimes (oddly and fleetingly) humorous, sometimes bittersweet, often poignant, this movie reminds us to take chances and to seek out and clarify the threads of connections between us all.You will enjoy this film if you are patient and observant. There is a real balance in this film between accessing the viewers' emotions (without imposing on them) while still providing intellectual stimulation and food for thought on many issues. Reminders of American influences are everywhere in the film, but are not overtly stated. Instead, they form the backdrop to tell a series of stories. I particularly enjoyed wondering how each story might connect to other or if they even would.Remarkable. Enjoyable.

Director Tony Bui left Vietnam to live in California when he was only two years old, then returned to take a look at postwar Vietnam in 1994. The result was his 1999 film Three Seasons that walked away with a prize for Lisa Rinzler's cinematography as well as the Best Dramatic Picture Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Performed in Vietnamese with Vietnamese actors, Three Seasons is a series of interweaving stories about loss and redemption in the lives of four characters living in Ho Chi Minh City (though the residents apparently still call it Saigon). Its strength lies, not in its plot or characters, but in the stunning images and dreamlike quality that transports the viewer into a world of sensuous music and soft colors where village women sing while they work, harvesting flowers on a lotus lake. The main and most effective story is about a cyclo driver Hai (Don Duong) who falls in love with a prostitute named Lan (Zoe Bui), He wants to "redeem" her innocence and dutifully waits for her each day as she leaves her hotel. When they go to a hotel together, he pays $50 from the money he won in a cyclo race merely to watch her sleep, a gesture that allows her to experience the feeling of being loved for the first time. The second story is about a young lotus picker Kien An, a female orphan (Ngoc Hiep Nguyen) who befriends her employer, Teacher Dao (Manh Cuong Tran), and lovingly copies his poems that he cannot record himself because of leprosy. This gesture allows both to touch the poetic quality of life, the teacher for perhaps the last time. The other stories involve a five-year old street urchin named Woody (Huu Duoc Nguen) who braves monsoon-like weather to sell trinkets to tourists in order to survive. When the box containing his wares is stolen, he sets out to find it. This brings him in contact with an American, James Hager (Harvey Keitel) in Vietnam to search for the daughter he left behind when the war was over. This last episode is the least developed of the four and Keitel's performance seems listless in spite of the fact that he is Executive Producer of the film. All four stories come together at the end in a way that ties up all loose ends.Though I am grateful for any look into Vietnam, Three Seasons left me wanting more. It is almost as if Bui was being overly cautious, afraid to say anything about what he saw because of the censors following him around. As a result, his film does not convey a strong sense of time and place, and the neon street signs and glamorous hotels patronized by the rich could be anywhere in the world. Perhaps it is true that the city's culture is being overrun by rampant commercialism, but the director observes this without comment and seems content to offer only a highly romanticized tone poem. Even the city's textures, squalid areas, and chaotic energy are so muted by the use of camera filters that it robs them of their steamy authenticity. Three Seasons is visually striking but left me feeling like a distant observer. I found the characters to be neither fresh nor engaging and the film overly composed, lacking in the poetic vision that turns an average film experience into a great one.

There are several story lines in the film which seldom or never cross. So just relax and let the film unfold with beautiful photography of contemporary Vietnam. You will see Ho Chi Min City and the countryside. A rather poetic film.