The Vertical Ray of the Sun

Beauty, beauty, beauty. Tran makes Vietnam look like the most colorful place on the planet. But as pretty as the movie looks, it can't match the beauty that comes from the setting and the interaction between the characters. If you're looking for excitement, fast-paced action or a complex plot, you should look elsewhere; if you're looking for the cinematic representation of everything that's good about a warm summer day, this is the movie for you.

Beauty overload. The only complaint I could make about The Vertical Ray of the Sun is that the story left me kind of empty, and I still can't decide exactly what to make of it. That being said, it's just a peaceful and bright experience, to the point where you can still see the colors after the film has ended.

An attractive-looking tropical film that functions well as a Vietnamese tourist bureau advertisement, and gently but not unsuccessfully explores familial relationships. Yet there is something about it that does not quite convince: the scenes in which some Lou Reed is thrown in, for example, seem to be striving a little too hard for a sense of cool, the nods to Bergman et al. seem a little too "film-school-try-hard", and it all seems too geared towards gaining Western approval. Poor DVD transfer.

A beautiful, intensely satisfying look at love and family. Breathtaking work of tranquility and harmony, even while the lives of the characters are thrown out of balance. Tran seeks out beauty wherever he can find it -- in faces, in food, in nature, in walls and ponds and rainstorms. Beauty in mood and music and emotion, and in family. It's intoxicating and mellowing, and feeds the heart.

It's a very pretty film, and the melancholy mood, helped along by the soundtrack and visual style, was definitely the highlight. Even when I wasn't really understanding what was going on I had an emotional understanding of the characters, which is quite a feat. I still struggled to piece things together, and that made it hard for me to place the emotions in a meaningful context where they could grow into insight.

A little empty, a lot of beauty. I'm left speechless.

(vulgar language, reader discretion advised) Got it! This is a world where people do not piss or shit, they are totally sterile ubermenches. All they do is crawl around the world in harmony, mystery and a dragging sense of romanticism. Everyone is cuddly, like they mean no serious bussiness. These out of my chest, there is no use struggling with the movie and not to give up to aesthetic sense.

Like Wong Kar-wai directing an Ozu script?

The director is so entranced with the beauty of his wife that he allows things like plot to slip into the picture near the end. Pretty with a pretension of content.

Woody Allen's Bergmanesque relationship chamber-dramas transported to Vietnam. It's good, but I would love it only for the fact that The Married Monk are in the soundtrack.

aestheticizes the shit out of the struggles of these sisters

Beautiful and sweet and nothing more

Hung has some serious skills, but once again it feels a little empty and over-polished. It is really pretty, though, with really pretty people. Hung's wife is super-hot.

The film explores stages in romantic relationships (and to some extent stages in the human life cycle) through the lives of three sisters. There are slow, arty moments (like the beginning), but each sister's story is an accessible and engaging and a bit soap-opera-ish (although tastefully done). The stories are not a far step from something like *The Joy Luck Club*. And, yes, it's a gorgeous looking film. (Never has squalid apartments looked so beautiful.)

Of course, it's beautiful from its opening shot. What Hung does with light is among the great achievements in film. Interestingly, the beauty of the images compares with the relations of the sisters to one another, but contrasts with their relations with men. There's an embrace of family here, a "no one is as good as dad," theme that is in one sense heartening, but in another deeply sad.