The Beautiful Country
 
It may come as a surprise to learn that between 12,000 and 18,000 Amer-Asian children were born in Vietnam between 1964 and 1975.  Because of their half-breed status, these "Bui doi" children were treated as “less than dust,” and many, if not most, became street orphans.
      

Many Americans first learned about these children through Tony Bui's 1999 film Three Seasons, starring Harvey Keitel as an American soldier returning to Vietnam to find his daughter. Hans Petter Moland's gorgeously photographed film (by Stuart Dryburgh), The Beautiful Country, reverses that theme.
      

Abandoned as a child, Binh (newcomer Damien Nguyen), a 20-year-old "Bui doi," struggles against overwhelming obstacles to find both his Vietnamese mother and his American father. His difficulties are obvious metaphors for the struggles of both countries to heal after the devastation of the war. Nick Nolte, who has a cameo in the film, sums it up during an interview, saying,  “Vietnam is still the moral touchstone for most of my generation.”
      

Moland uses only a handful of recognizable actors (Nolte, Tim Roth, and Bai-Ling) in a cast of predominately Asian actors, and the film is almost entirely subtitled except for the last section.  But this is no longer necessarily box office poison--remember the success of Joshua Marston's Maria Full of Grace.  
      

The year is 1990 and Binh is now full-grown--literally a good head taller than the average pure-blooded Vietnamese. He has been indentured his whole life to a foster family who treat him as a slave while feeding him their table scraps. When he learns his mother is still alive and living in Saigon, Binh begins the journey that is at the core of the film--his quest for his birthright.  He finds not only his mother but Tam, a younger half-brother, and his father's name and address in Texas.
      

Through a series of mishaps as melodramatic as anything in Dickens, Binh and Tam wind up first in a refugee camp and then as boat people.  In the camp they meet Ling, a Chinese prostitute who befriends them and helps them get to the packed fishing boat captained by Roth as an ambiguously impassive trafficker in human cargo.
      

Aboard the overcrowded vessel, things go from bad to worse as more and more terrible events occur in Binh's already desperate existence.  He may be a survivor, but others are not so lucky.  Still staunchly resolved to find his American father, Binh turns down the captain's offer of employment on the boat and finally arrives in New York.
      

Binh and Ling quickly become part of the city's underclass of illegal Asian and Latino immigrants, virtual slave labor in the city's restaurants and bars. Crowded together in single-room occupancies turned into dormitories, these unfortunates often live 20 or more to a room.  
      

In that community, Binh learns that the last eight years of his suffering and loss were unnecessary. Since 1982, the Amer-Asian Immigration Act has given top priority to the "bui doi." Of course, no one went looking for these children of American fathers, so only someone as tough and determined as Binh could actually benefit.
      

In the final portion of the film, the scene shifts to the remote Texas ranch where his American dad works. Binh   has now embarked on an American odyssey, and the photography again underscores the "beautiful" of the title. But his trials are still not over.
      

Binh's absent father Steve (played by the always wonderful Nolte with appropriate gravitas, no matter how small the role) turns out to be a blind rancher who--of course--didn't even know that Binh existed. Without revealing his identity, Binh hires on as a ranchhand and achieves at least part of his American dream when taciturn father and world-weary son are united at last.
      

The film's most telling snippet of dialogue comes at the very end.  As Binh and Steve work together, the son asks his father, “Bad memories of Vietnam?” “Worse,” Steve replies. “Good memories,” explaining how he didn't want to burden his Vietnamese wife with a blind husband. The grizzled Hollywood veteran and the Asian newcomer underplay the hell out of this very affecting moment. Let the metaphorical healing begin!
 
Leslie (Hoban) Blake