pc95 Review of The Beautiful Country

The Beautiful Country (2004)

English/Writing/Script detract/distract from the movie

[6/10 · 17 December 2005]

Whoever wrote the script and dialogue did this movie a huge disfavor. Anytime that Binh uses English, it sounds terribly forced and phony. Had the director/storyteller/editors/writers caught this and called for perhaps just ad-libbing or improvisation or perhaps more rewrites etc from/for the actors the movie probably would've been good. As it is the story is interesting and the cinematography at times captivating. The love interest which could've lifted the movie is made to suffer and actually detracts from the movie with lines like "Have no 2000 dollars" and "Boat no go without Ling" or something to that effect. The actors basically are caught red-handed with conversations to spew out that unnecessarily dumb everything down and point to how ignorant and stereotyped the writers preconceived notions are of non-English Asian speakers. The movie unfortunately is something of a mixed bag with great performances from most despite the English mess.