Review of Cyclo (1996) by Daniel K — 21 May 2011

2: I guess I'm kind of assuming that the title "Cyclo" is meant to be remind the viewer of "Psycho." I really had no idea what I was getting into here, as I assumed it would be a film about a cyclo driver, but it turned out to be about a cyclo driver turned gangster.

Tony Leung was a surprise, both because he is in a Vietnamese picture and because he looks so incredibly young. Tourism definitely has no role here, essentially because the country had barely opened up to the outside world at this time.

The picture was far more artistically adventurous than I was anticipating as well. It is a fully-fledged art house picture. I honestly found it a little hard to follow, in terms of plot, cause and effect, etc.

I almost have no idea what happened or why it happened over the course of the film. The first act was stellar and made one more deeply consider what it would be like to live in a place like this on a shoestring.

Their family and all the other families were just doing what could to survive, and it was a meager existence. However, by turning this poverty into a story of crime, the filmmakers almost seem to be saying this transition was inevitable.

I would have preferred the picture to continue on all the same lines as the first act. This is yet another one of the DVDs I picked up on the streets of Hanoi.