Dat Kho - Land of Sorrows

Dat Kho (Land of Sorrows), a 1970s foreign, English-subtitled film, starring the beloved Vietnamese iconic songwriter/poet/painter Trinh Cong Son (1939-2001) in what may be his only starring movie role, dramatizes the effect of the Vietnam War on a single South Vietnamese family, the inner conflict of decisions by each member of the family whether to remain in Vietnam or leave with the imminent fall of the city of Hue and eventual fall of Vietnam. 

It compresses three seminal events of the Vietnam war: (1) the Buddhist uprising in Hue during 1965; (2) the Tet Offensive in 1968; and (3) the 1972 "Summer of Fire".  It includes real footage of refugees fleeing the North Vietnamese' Easter Offensive of 1972.

With that real war footage serving as the backdrop, "Dat Kho" is a story of the love of family, homeland, and culture and language of Vietnam. It also is about the ethereal love of the ingenue daughter for her fiance, foiled by the antagonistic forces of the ever-present war.  It is thought-provoking, and at the same time it directly relates to present day conflicts such as the Gulf War and Iraq. It challenges the reasons for foreign involvement in essentially a civil war and questions the lessons learned or that should have been learned.

Reviews

Steven Hunter, Washington Post
"A real rarity -- I've seen this one, but almost no one else has -- is "Dat-Kho," translated from the Vietnamese as "Land of sorrows." And boy, is it ever. It's a fictional family melodrama actually filmed in the mid-'70s, during the fall; it follows the course of the war as it implodes the life of five members of a family in Hue, including a draft dodger and a ranger captain. Those explosions in the background? Well, let's put it this way -- special effects courtesy of the North Vietnamese regular army. The film, which was literally locked in a trunk for 25 years and has emerged only recently (this is its first commercial showing in 25 years, possibly ever), was directed by Ha Thuc Can. Washington's large Vietnamese population and its community of retired old salts with shrapnel still in their flesh should come out in droves for it."

Screenings

AFI Event at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC.