User reviews

In the contemporary Ho Chi Minh, former Saigon, Kien An (Ngoc Hiep Nguyen) is a worker hired to gather and sell lotus for her master, Professor Dao (Manh Cuong Tran). Dao was a handsome poet, who is dying of leprosy. He lost his fingers, and Kien offers herself to write his poetries for him. Hai (Don Duong) is a tricycle-taxi driver, who falls in love for the expensive hooker Lan (Diep Bui). Woody is a homeless little child, working as street peddler of watches, cigarette lighters and other minor goods, who has his wallet stolen. He believes that the thief is James Hager (Harvey Keitel), a former marine who is looking for his daughter with a Vietnamese woman during the war. These three parallel bitter and beautiful stories present in a metaphoric view, the transition of the political and economical system of Vietnam. Professor Dao represents the traditional system, the communism, rotten and dying. Lan is a metaphoric view of the transition to the capitalism, corrupted, aimed and unattainable for most of the poor population. Woody and the little girl represent the next generations of excluded of the new wild system, fighting for the survival and having no perspective in life. James Hager would be the return of the American interests in Vietnam. I am intrigued with the title of this film: "Three Seasons". The lotus means the spring, the hard rain means the winter; the fallen leaves, the autumn. Where is the summer and why is it missing? "Three Seasons" is a highly recommended movie, open to the most different interpretations by the viewers. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Três Estações" ("Three Seasons")

"Three Seasons" has many layers of complexity, yet it's executed in a deceptively simple and poetic fashion which seems to just flow off the screen. Some may find it too long or may perhaps feel the film seems to get lost in all its elegance. However, hang in there, the payoff comes through understanding it in its entirety.

"Three Seasons" is a touching and poignant display of Vietnamese society and the dramatic changes it's going through. The cinematography and direction were beautiful and reminded me a bit of the film "Scent of Green Papaya".

The movie is a collection of at least four different stories, all taking place in Saigon in the present day. Basically, each story is about the struggle to survive, both physically and spiritually in an ever changing and modernized society. Class struggle, the influence from the West (both bad and good), exploitation of children, and corruption of the soul are examined. We are told that like the lotus, some will fall in the mud, and others will fall in a rich pond. "Three Seasons" follows the lives of these flowers and the purity and divinity within them.

Director Tony Bui left Vietnam to live in California when he was only two years old, then returned to take a look at postwar Vietnam in 1994. The result was his 1999 film Three Seasons that walked away with a prize for Lisa Rinzler's cinematography as well as the Best Dramatic Picture Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Performed in Vietnamese with Vietnamese actors, Three Seasons is a series of interweaving stories about loss and redemption in the lives of four characters living in Ho Chi Minh City (though the residents apparently still call it Saigon). Its strength lies, not in its plot or characters, but in the stunning images and dreamlike quality that transports the viewer into a world of sensuous music and soft colors where village women sing while they work, harvesting flowers on a lotus lake.

The main and most effective story is about a cyclo driver Hai (Don Duong) who falls in love with a prostitute named Lan (Zoe Bui), He wants to "redeem" her innocence and dutifully waits for her each day as she leaves her hotel. When they go to a hotel together, he pays $50 from the money he won in a cyclo race merely to watch her sleep, a gesture that allows her to experience the feeling of being loved for the first time. The second story is about a young lotus picker Kien An, a female orphan (Ngoc Hiep Nguyen) who befriends her employer, Teacher Dao (Manh Cuong Tran), and lovingly copies his poems that he cannot record himself because of leprosy. This gesture allows both to touch the poetic quality of life, the teacher for perhaps the last time. The other stories involve a five-year old street urchin named Woody (Huu Duoc Nguen) who braves monsoon-like weather to sell trinkets to tourists in order to survive. When the box containing his wares is stolen, he sets out to find it. This brings him in contact with an American, James Hager (Harvey Keitel) in Vietnam to search for the daughter he left behind when the war was over. This last episode is the least developed of the four and Keitel's performance seems listless in spite of the fact that he is Executive Producer of the film. All four stories come together at the end in a way that ties up all loose ends.

Though I am grateful for any look into Vietnam, Three Seasons left me wanting more. It is almost as if Bui was being overly cautious, afraid to say anything about what he saw because of the censors following him around. As a result, his film does not convey a strong sense of time and place, and the neon street signs and glamorous hotels patronized by the rich could be anywhere in the world. Perhaps it is true that the city's culture is being overrun by rampant commercialism, but the director observes this without comment and seems content to offer only a highly romanticized tone poem. Even the city's textures, squalid areas, and chaotic energy are so muted by the use of camera filters that it robs them of their steamy authenticity. Three Seasons is visually striking but left me feeling like a distant observer. I found the characters to be neither fresh nor engaging and the film overly composed, lacking in the poetic vision that turns an average film experience into a great one.

Mmm... maybe i walked into the screening with too big of an expectation for the film... i guess i was prepared to be blown away... and i wasn't...

i really didn't care much for the characters to enjoy the movie (except maybe for the cyclo rider)... i felt that the director tried too hard to be subtle... to incorporate "asian-ness" in this film... i don't really know Tony Bui's background very well, but this film feels like to me, an american-born asian trying hard to make an asian film... as an asia-born/bred asian, that was how the film felt like to me... and my other friend with me for the screening felt the same too...

Yes, the film looked beautiful and the film does has its moments... but on the whole it felt very disjointed and sometimes pretentious... the little boy story stood up like a sore thumb to me... esp becoz the director has made the choice of setting all the scenes with the little boy on a rainy night... the other three subplots went through days and nights whereas the boy's story felt like it happened on just one rainy night.. this created a problem for me when the four stories were intercut together... it almost felt like to me that the director's initial intention was just to make a short film with the boy's story, then maybe he happened to find sundance to finance him and added three other stories to intercut to make it into a feature... i'd rather if the film is separated into four different segments... like how the wonderfully made taiwanese film "Love A-go-go" is structured... and may i say if you wanna know what real "subtle" is, see that film instead!

I am not saying that "Three Seasons" is a bad film, but it didn't move me at all... and i am really curious about the film winning the two big prizes in Sundance... i am beginning to worry about the direction Sundance is going in the future...

There are not very many movies that can put the viewer into the trance that this one did. It left me wondering why more American films can't be made like this, with subtlety and an eye for simplistic beauty and peace in nature. The many scenes at night in the rain-soaked city only provide a stark contrast to the scenes with lotus flowers and singing, thus making them more effective and fresh. Above this, the characters were intriguing. None had a life even remotely like mine, and this is probably likewise for 99% of Americans, who live in a fast-track, needlessly complicated, and mostly material world. Materialism exists in Three Seasons, but is seen as the enemy (the plastic lotus flowers) or (in the case of the prostitute) something to overcome. I left the theatre feeling somewhat wistful that there are not more films like this being produced today.

Given the IMDb score and the many high praise reviews that this movie had gotten, I must say that I had expected something quite more from the movie. That being said, then don't get me wrong, because "Three Seasons" is a beautiful and entertaining movie.

There are several layers and stories told in the movie. Stories that are all connected together. Some better and more interesting than others. "Three Seasons" tells the story of an American looking for his daughter - this was the least interesting of the stories. It also tells the story of Woody, a street urchin who thinks the American stole his case of tourist trinkets. While this story is better than the searching for the daughter story, it just seemed a bit too shallow. "Three Seaons" is also the story of Hai, a cycle driver who gives a ride to Lan, a hotel callgirl, whom he ends up falling in love with. This was a good story, albeit quite generic, but this story was really well-told on the screen. And finally, it is also the story of Kien An, a young woman hired to harvest lotus flowers, who end up bringing a glimmer of life back to a reclusive man stricken with leprosy. This was the most touching and beautiful of all the stories told in "Three Seasons".

"Three Seasons" does have some really good acting performances by the Vietnamese cast. Ngoc Hiep Nguyen (playing Kien An) stole the screen with her performance. But Duong Don (playing Hai) and Diep Bui (playing Lan) were also putting on very memorable performances.

This is a story and character driven movie, so it might come off as a slow and dull movie to some. But it is a beautiful movie on different layers, and it is well-worth watching.

This film is sheer poetry! The three seasons are actually three vignettes, interpersonal connections which all touch the others in strange and moving ways. (Harvey Keitel is moving as a VietNam war vet who has returned to search for his Amerasian daughter.) The use of flowers and color as metaphor for the "opening" of VietNam after the war is truly striking. Don't miss this film.

Three Seasons, directed by Tony Bui, is a complex often confusing look at four human stories that only briefly connect to each other. It takes place presumably, in Saigon, and does give us a view of what life is like in a Vietnam large city. Harvey Keitel lends his name to this venture as executive producer but his actual on screen time is only about 15 minutes. It is acted well and the photography is stunning but much of this film is shot in almost total darkness at times. I found myself wanting the sun to shine more. It is a painfully slow movie at times but the characters are well developed and I found myself interested if not absorbed most of the time.Three Seasons is like reading a novel. If you have the patience,it can be rewarding.

Please do yourself a favor and see this film. It is a beautiful and touching masterpiece. The film is set in a large city in modern day Vietnam. I believe it was Saigon. The film centers around the lives of several individuals. There is the ex-Marine (Harvey Keitel), hanging around an old GI bar (now a restaurant), hoping to find his daughter; The cyle taxi driver, who yearns to romance a local call girl; the flower girl who volunteers to write for a reclusive poet who lost his hands to leperacy; and the little boy who sells watches and cigarette lighters in hotels, bars, and the street. All these characters are weaved beautifully into the story like a boat moving slowly but surely up a river to a wonderful place. I have seen very very few movies in the past several years which qualify as true works of art. This movie is the real deal. .

My opinion is quite the opposite of a prior viewer Brian Orndorf. He asks rhetorically "Maybe I missed something?" In my opinion he certainly has.

I caught only the last 1/3 of this movie but I was riveted to my seat within 2 minutes of viewing. Here's what I loved about this movie.

1 Beautiful cinematography. I especially liked the visions of dark rainy streets among other things. Every scene has a poetic flow. In short the photography is superb

2 The poetry and songs are lovely and work perfectly with the cinematography, and the individual stories that gradually unfold in time

3 The film conveys the gentleness of the Vietnamese culture as well as the harsh poverty and the widening gulf between the "have's and have nots" a characteristic not unique to this region

I'm certainly looking forward to seeing this wonderful movie in its entirety and recommend it to any sensitive viewers. If you enjoy movies like King of Masks, Central Station, City of Lost Children, Hotel Splendide, Red Lantern, Eat Drink Man Woman, etc. you will probably like this movie. If you don't like this genre then don't waste you time and stick with the usual mass market Hollywood drivel.

The maturity of this young film maker was startling to me. The obviously gorgeous and varied visual feast for one's eyes combined with small subtlteties such as the nipple of the whore's breast showing through the pink nightgown that the cyclo driver gave her.. just a second.. but a revealing moment since all the clothes she dressed in as a whore never revealed her as much. Another example was in the story of the lotus flower girl and the leper.. the more she wrote his poetry the more his face appeared out of the shadows and became lit. The marriage of the visual and lighting movement reflecting the feelings of the characters is rare to see and something to be studied again in this film. And a moving performance by Keitel clearly searching for his humanity. And a perfect bit of casting with the woman who played his grown daughter. The director's sense of timing- not rushed, letting each story unfold, carrying one on the precarious wave of the confused mix of the country's old and the new, the thought provoking issues of the various different kinds of love portrayed..parental love,romantic love, poetic love, the love of beaty where it realy lies....all rare in film making today. Profoundly disturbing scenes of the street children. Nothing like this from a young American film makers that I've seen. And as a worldwide distributor of film, TV and video who tries to support new filmmakers I've seen a fair amount. I would like to know where the poetry came from and how to find it for myself to read and savor it even more.Bravo Tony Bui. Bravo Timothy Bui.

Being Vietnamese myself, I have always scrutinized any film/movie/book that has any relation to Vietnam/Vietnamese people and Three Seasons stands as a jewel among the disappointing portrayals I've seen. Its beauty comes from its simplicity and honesty. (There is more to Vietnam then its war history.) A movie doesn't have to have the fast-paced car chases, or guts and gore or even gratuitous sex or nudity. And it may not even have some brain-racking puzzle or mystery for the audience to figure out (or does it?). What it DOES have is a group of people living in shadows but still embracing life with open arms. It's a feel good movie. It's poetic in the most subtle way. Tony Bui doesn't necessarily shout out his motive. Let the movie whisper to you. You may not get what it's saying but at least it's what YOU make of it.

Excellent direction, photography, music and a very touching story. In our affluent western society we tend to forget who we are and where we come from. "Three seasons" is like a little bit of fresh air in a closed room, a new window where there was none. "Life as it is", that's the words that pop into my head. People should see it, with an open heart and with an open mind.

This film took me back to my childhood when I lived in Singapore in 1968. The buildings, the rickshaws and the street vendors were all a part of Singapore culture back then. Like the Lotus Blossom girl with her yolk and baskets calling out her wares most days we had an old man shuffling along down the road outside our house selling beans and calling out.

For me it is sad that this ancient culture that had remained the same for millennia has now disappeared. Strangely the old house we lived in in Singapore still remains while most of the others around it have been replaced with modern buildings.

I found this film to be boring and cliched, but Vietnam looked so pretty that I couldn't give it anything lower than a 5 out of 10.

My geography teacher seemed to love it... but he's really really white.

The subtitles are near impossible to read. I'm not sure if that's done on purpose or what, but i thought it was annoying.

The little boy in the film is cute.

That's really all I got out of this movie. I felt as if all the rest has been done before. If you care to find out more, read other people's critiques.

Tony Bui's "Three Seasons" takes place in the teeming nightlife and the majestic hotels and the open marketplace and squalor of modern day Saigon. It is symbolically a film about traveling the historical past and present, put together in four uneven vignettes and how the lives of five people crisscross each other. Bui is not obtrusive and so his film is gentle and sweet and he lets his actors play out their roles with naturalness and grace. The gentleness of this film can be both its strength and weakness, because you leave thinking about discrete images beautifully photographed but you don't really have a sense of what Bui was trying to say. The image of sweat running down the face of cyclo drivers and the red abrasions on naked skin across the woman's back caused by a spoon are just two examples. Also, unlike Western soap opera, he isn't here to manipulate. Take the old man, Master Dao and his terribly scarred up face and amputations. Dao could have been afflicted by the after effects of napalm or a land mine explosion but, no, he has an old-fashioned affliction, leprosy. There is no post-Vietnam hate in Bui. The spirited cycle race through the streets of Saigon descends upon us without much buildup nor dramatics. We don't realize the significance of Hai winning this race till we see what he does with his winnings. Perhaps the few times Bui decides he needs to make an explicit statement, he does so with subtlety: the plastic lotus flowers which outsell the naturally grown ones, the opulent, newer hotels rising in Saigon turning the society into truly haves and have nots (what Bui calls the people of shadows), and the hardworking cyclo driver straining to move his vehicle as his Western couple occupants chatter oblivious to his struggles. The other weakness of "Three Seasons" is that the four vignettes are so interesting that each could have occupied the entire film. Instead we get incomplete servings from all four and a hunger to know more. Bui spends more time with the cyclo drive and the prostitute and the water lily girl and her poetic master. The story about the street smart little boy, who is forever in the rainy streets looking for his missing case of trinkets to sell and finding both the case and a tender companion in the end, could have stood by itself. Similarly, the Vietnam vet who comes back to find his lost daughter because he has to 'right a wrong' is a beautiful piece that needed more detail than what the film provided. The final scene of "Three Seasons" summarizes this film neatly - the falling crimson pedals from trees lining a boulevard. It is picturesque in its beauty but the meaning of it is more effervescent than lasting.

There are, unfortunately fewer and fewer films which have such an impact.

A story about parallel lives, A tricycle/rickshaw driver (very sympathetically portrayed) a young child, and Harvey Keitel as a retired GI searching for his lost daughter. A poet dying of leprosy, recruiting an apprentice.

It is interesting to see the sights of Saigon, and Vietnam as it is being rebuilt- a massive five-star hotel built next to poverty stricken residents (How is that different from Atlantic City, New Jersey)?. The cinematography and soundtrack is both peaceful and disturbing. The photography of the young street children, playing soccer in the rain, is unique and touching. The scenes of the rickshaw driver, and his tenderness toward a local street-walker, are especially endearing. He saves his hard earned money, just to bring her to the expensive hotel, and watch her sleep, undisturbed. Some of the scenes will touch your soul, and you will empathize with the characters.

A reviewer had mentioned the fact that American life is so much more materialistic, and visual imagery such as this, the lotus pond, the autumn leaves can no longer be appreciated in America. What a sad commentary. Anyone who has traveled overseas will learn there is a whole world, much of which does not subsist by weekly trips to shopping malls and strip malls. Thank God for that, and Tony Bui's creative vision.

For me, a threshold test for any movie is whether it suspends disbelief. Does the movie draw me into its world? Does the "Once upon a Time..." of the opening sequence enchant me to the point where I lose myself in the movie for the next few hours? Would I notice, or mind, if the theatre were to catch fire during the movie?

Three Seasons passes my disbelief test with flying colours. As Tony Bui spun his magic web, I was his, to toy with as he wished.

The movie is gorgeous, and treats all its characters with the complete respect they deserve. This is one very promising directorial debut.

Vietnam is one of the most beautiful places on earth, despite the troubles it has seen in recent decades. This movie captures that beauty magnificently.

The story-telling style is steeped in the Vietnamese tradition of story-telling, which might not please everyone who sees the film. Several stories intertwine, but without "all joining up at the end" in a cheesy, Hollywood way. The stories touch on the legacy of the war only gently, while focusing on the genuinely difficult lives that most Vietnamese people now live and the strength of their spirit. Having been to Vietnam, this style reflects the place in modern times very well.

If the charm and beauty of South-East Asia is your bag, then surely this film will please you. If you wanted a Vietnam War movie with Harvey Keitel, you'll be much disappointed.

An extremely sophisticated, extremely effective tear-jerker: extraordinarily beautiful, finely crafted, and unabashedly compassionate. There's not a lot of plot--or rather there are several very slender plots delicately interwoven. The delicacy, and the constant subtle irony prevent the movie's use of exceedingly improbable coincidences and relentlessly happy endings from cloying. Neat bits--the name of the bar; the world's most lovely leper colony. Don't go see this if you are looking for political or social commentary beyond the gentle, constant portrayal of the rich as shallow outsiders.

i was not really into art films had not my anthro class required me to watch the film Three Seasons. Initial impression: Subtle, Asian version of Magnolia. Although Magnolia gave a hard stroke on American life and beauty by presenting brutish and twisted lives of different people, Three Seasons was softer and was more focused on redemption and search for contentment and happiness in life through a plain yet colorful lives of different Vietnamese and an American. The pictures were astonishing and moving--you feel what you see and it was such an enigma to evoke such essence of a story without flooding the whole of the movie with rhetorical lines and words. the enigma i felt was the same when i watched Magnolia but i think i love this movie more than it. Three Seasons did not have enough words but the pictures were really great. i personally love the song of Kien An and the petal shower before the story ends--they were so impressing. The biggest lesson i got in the story is that dreams somehow and someday will come true, our search for happiness and contentment will end in a different way we intended. i have to thank my anthro professor, i have to thank Three Seasons. ;-)

A young girl that harvests and sells lotus flowers; a professor that lives hidden because of his illness; a cycle-driver that falls in love with a prostitute; an American former-soldier who came back to China to look for his daughter; a lovely street boy that sells gadgets... In "Three Seasons", these histories construct a gorgeous picture of the human nature. "The rain of red petals" and "the lotus flowers going down to the river" are two of the most beautiful scenes I've already seen in cinema. 10/10