The White Silk Dress (2006) User Reviews

Vietnam, sad , lovely...gracious tenacious and full of beauty!

[ian_king · 9/10 · 31 January 2008]

*****CONTAINS LOTS OF SPOILERS......

This film was to me exactly what I see in the Vietnams history and its people, full of tenacity, courage and Stoicism in the very hardest of times, especially its amazing Women. After their loving and loyal beginnings the failings of the husband by his lack of ability to fulfil his lovers one demand made him sour. His lack of ability to provide and be a man like he would really want then got trumped by his disgust and guilt after discovering his wife's desperate efforts behind his back to make up for his failings, of course he initially took this out on his wife!

This further upset him and made him hate himself more, he clearly started to loose hope. Ultimately lessons where learn-ed through horrid political circumstances that happened to his Wife because of their plight, thus the Husband then realised why he fell in love with her in the first place and how precious she was and felt guilty for it. A lesson many learn in life every day throughout the world..this is not just sad and dark...it is very real even today. The steam train tragedy then continues but all along you are accompanied by the journey of the Silk dress...go see the film.

Do not forget this is NOT a Hollywood movie, this does not have a Universal studio budget, extensive pre-distribution deals and there is no Clooney or Pitt..it is what it is!

WELL DONE!

Amazing and rare gem about Vietnamese suffering

[djepic1 · 9/10 · 11 September 2008]

This film is truly a great accomplishment for Vietnam and the Vietnamese-American director. Despite having a budget of roughly only two million USD, it is the most expensive film ever produced by the country.

The film is able to capture the authentic essence of Vietnamese culture through the story and themes; mainly that of suffering and respect for parents. The story follows the life of a poor hunchbacked man and a servant woman from North Vietnam who experience suffering through war and living in poverty.

The film is heart wrenching as the painful scenes are not over dramatized or unbelievable. You really grieve for the family, and even life at points. This film certainly has no happy ending because it remains true to the lives of many Vietnamese people.

The film's shortcomings are mainly technical issues, which are due to the small film industry in Vietnam and the inexperienced production company. Despite those problems, the cinematography is beautiful and the film has many impressive scenes without the use of CGI or special effects.

This film was incredibly hard for me to obtain. As of summer 2008, there is no commercial release in Vietnam (due to rampant pirating), NA or Europe. Only Taiwan has released a DVD. This was the one I purchased and I was hoping the distributor would do a good job of presenting the film, but I was disappointed. The DVD presents the film in a matted 4:3 screen and the transfer is quite poor. You would think the film was much older based on the quality. The authentic DVD wasn't cheap either, so it was quite disappointing.

This film deserves to be seen by many and hopefully we will see some release in the future that does justice to the original material.

Loved the movie

[sbekam · 8/10 · 27 May 2008]

I have traveled to Vietnam many times for business and pleasure and I am sort of familiar with the pain and suffering that ordinary people went through before the war, during the war and many years afterward. The White Silk Dress is about a love story between two very poor servants who have high values even though they are struggling to survive. For a poor country with limited means, this movie portrayed the events well and in my opinion not slanted towards one side or the other politically. Vietnamese people are very conservative when it comes to nudity and I was surprised to see scenes of bare breasts which in this movie was part of the plot and well done. I enjoyed the movie very much and definitely recommend it.

The commitment of love and pain of life

[jimstevensvend · 10/10 · 23 November 2007]

A very powerful story about life in the face of turmoil.

As a Vietnam veteran, this movie showed some insight into the struggles facing the Vietnamese people for decades.

Love comes to two people at the bottom of the social structure in Vietnam in the 1950's. A silk dress comes to symbolize how this love grows.

Two daughters can't go to school beyond 6th grade unless they wear a white dress.

I suspect most viewers will shed tears watching the joy and challenges facing this family.

This movie has been criticized within some circles, for good reason. There is a layer of propaganda or politics that comes out repeatedly. However, I see this as a reflection of the story itself as well as the times it is reflecting. Beyond the politics is a great story well worth watching.

an ode to Vietnamese women

[szaller · 9/10 · 3 November 2012]

One of the most uplifting movies ever made by any director. This is not just another war story from Vietnam, not a depiction of an impoverished family, not a tale of a mysterious white silk dress (a traditional 'ao dai', the only valuable property they own), not a coming of age story of the peasant's daughters, nor an insight into Vietnamese culture. No, this movie is all of those things in one plus a wonderful ode to all Vietnamese women: to their resilience, determination, sagacity, and beauty. The story is brilliantly told, shot, scored, and does have a few surprising turns to keep you in your seat for its two hours and twenty minutes length.

Extremely tragic and depressing because there's so much love

[kathleen-pangan · 9/10 · 17 October 2008]

The White Silk Dress is a beautiful and tragic film. It is pretty much depressing throughout the whole thing, and everyone suffers a lot. It takes place in Vietnam with two servants who are in love who lead very oppressed lives and have cruel masters who are allied with the French. Then the Communist revolutionaries come around and kill the rich people; so the lovers are finally free to be together… They go to the south to start a new life and escape the poverty they've always known. But they stay poor, and raise a family entirely of daughters. The couple works hard and still can't seem to earn enough, but just enough to survive. Then there are all the major floods and natural disasters that just add more to their suffering. Things seem okay despite their poverty, until the girls reach the age in which they must wear white silk dresses to go to school, and the family doesn't have enough to buy silk. It gets even worse from then, if that's possible. There's the war between the U.S. and the Vietnamese Communist government, with violent interrogations and bombings. Tragedies abound, and it is just really depressing because everyone in the family loves each other so much, and they all lead such sad, sad, lives.

Another fine example of the amazing Vietnamese resolve

[sekander · 8/10 · 1 May 2009]

As someone who has traveled the length of this beautiful country 8 times, I am constantly reminded of the outstanding character of its people. So many times, I have been the recipient of kindnesses from those whose situation in life could not be any more different than my own. It doesn't matter to the Vietnamese. Even in Hanoi, as an American, I was expecting a bitter reception only to be humbled by the warmth and sincerity of my welcome. Why am I going on about the Vietnamese people without a mention of the movie? Because the movie is but one more shining example of how these people have fought through tragedy after tragedy and refused to buckle. Their resolve is second to none-as evidenced by their defeats of the French, Americans and Chinese in a span of 25 years.

The movie picks up the story of a young couple in a northern village in 1954, the year Ho Chi Minh finally defeated the French. The couple sees this as a good time to escape the grinding poverty of their serf-like existence and head south. They settle in Hoi An and raise a family. This isn't the Hoi An of tourist shops, restaurants and 500 tailors that has somehow become a hot destination in the last ten years. This is the Hoi An of pre-UNESCO fame; just another village full of people trying to get by. They never escape the poverty that seems to weigh on them from the beginning, but, despite it all, they have the love of a tight knit family in spades. And, there is the achingly beautiful countryside around Hoi An. Even in poverty, these people's lives are not without many of Nature's rewards.

With our knowledge of history, we can pretty well guess that there is more tragedy in store and it really is heartbreaking. The anguish and suffering that are such a large part of Vietnamese history does not leave this wonderful family untouched and it won't leave you untouched, either.

Highly politicized

[mycoyne · 2/10 · 17 March 2023]

The movie is a tool for propaganda for the Vietnamese Communism. With many scenes were carefully and selectively chosen for its political purpose. The movie has many scenes that are not to believe; the last scene with the child held the white dress as a sign of surrendering; yet the Americans/South Viet Nam still dropped the bombs to the civilians. It just was not true. This can be labeled as "history is written by the winners"; and it is bias.

The movie can also written different where the impoverished children were rescued and live somewhere in the US, came back to celebrate their Motherland.