| MKL Distribution | Release Date: August 2, 1996 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
10
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
|
Critic Reviews
With its finely shaded portrayals, Cyclo, which took the Golden Lion at Venice last year, is another superb picture from Hung, a world-class filmmaker if ever there was one. [01 Aug 1996, p.F2]
Although not without flaws, Tran Anh Hung's Cyclo is, nevertheless, the most ambitious and impressive achievement of Vietnam's young film industry. [01 Nov 1996, p.E5]
Despite its seamy nature, Cyclo abounds with touching small moments, acts of kindness and acts of charity. [01 Aug 1996]
Hung skillfully evokes the oppressive congestion, squalor and heat of Ho Chi Minh City. (Amazingly, given the controlling nature of Vietnam's socialist government, the warts-and-all movie was shot on location.) But he is less successful at developing the character of his characters.
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Made with the same jewel-like meticulousness and very Gallic sense of style that set Tran’s debut so far apart from other Asian offerings, the new feature again boasts boldly creative craftsmanship in every frame. The film is disappointingly compromised, however, by needlessly convoluted, often pretentiously enigmatic plotting, placing a considerable blight on its commercial potential.
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It is a harsh and muddling movie, but often an astounding one. [24 Mar 1996, p.11]
An oblique narrative and shadowy thoughts, in a film that divides itself abruptly between wordlessness and outright poetry, become too fragile to rise above harsher images that overwhelm the viewer. Cyclo never achieves the balance to make such contrasts work as lucidly as they might.
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That Ho Chi Minh City is as rotten as the old Saigon, only more cynical and decrepit, is no great revelation, and we learn little of how ordinary people live or how society is organised in Vietnam today. [24 Mar 1996, p.12]
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