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Best movie of this year hands down!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fantastic!

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Can a teenager find his identity if he's always scraping to locate his next meal? This unusual and extremely exotic coming-of-age film seems to tackle this question amidst the subsistence rice paddies of 1940s Vietnam. The Lu Le is excellent as Kim, a shirtless and angry 15-year-old. His father, Det, taught Kim to play the flute in happier days but now serves mainly to keep him (and his machete) in line. Kim's mother is cold and rejecting. We learn a lot about why at Det's pivotal death-boat scene. Kim's unfolding epiphany is powerful. This psychological struggle takes place in a highly threatening environment. On the human side you have French-backed soldiers demanding high taxes, and local herder-gangsters practicing cut-throat competition, rape, and abduction. Nature is equally brutal. The primitive, unlighted terrain has its attractions but is also hellish with torrential downpours, oceanic floods, and a tremendous amount of mud. I'm glad I caught this on the TV channel of the City University of New York. At least now I understand why they call those beasts "water" buffalo!

Frankly, I am surprised I hung with this movie because it's pretty slow. It's not a real "entertainer," except for two things: 1 - the camera-work is nice at times; 2 - the story is quite different from anything we are accustomed to in the West. But after two-thirds of this story had elapsed, it was tough going the rest of the way. It's not an uplifting story, either. It left me feeling depressed. Yet, it IS a memorable film and I'm glad I watched it.I mean, as one reviewer says here "Vietnamese dude leads a bunch of buffaloes in search of grass. That's it."Yes, in one sense he's right, but obviously there is more to it than that. We get glimpses of this guy's father and mother, friends, enemies, thieves, sex, loyalty and abandonment and generally what life must be like for those in this story of people who live in this odd environment. With all the water around them, they couldn't bury their loved ones until the dry season came. They wrapped them up and put them on poles, and hopes the crows didn't peck away at the bodies. Yes, you wouldn't want to live here, at the southern tip of Vietnam with these rainy, long flood season. Lugging a couple of Water Buffaloes through waist-deep muddy water for miles can't be a great existence, either.I agree with another critic here who labels this story as "lyrical." For the most part, I liked watching and listening to "Kim" (The Lu Le) give his outlook on various topics and the dialog between he and his father often was humorous. Hey, how many times have you/did you sit around and smoke "weed" and play the flute with your dad?This is a culture far removed from mine, which is one reason why I stayed with this film - to learn something while witnessing some very foreign sights and sounds to me. I would recommend this only to people who know what they are getting into (something slow, and very different) or who just plain love most Asian films.

I saw this movie in a small theater in Paris in presence of the Director. What surprised me most at the beginning was the violation of basic rules such as framings that were not what we're usually used to. But you know the rule, better know it before you break it! So the result is visually quite pleasing. As for the story, that is quite dark, I remember the underwater scenes with skeletons that are focus point of the whole story: as far as I remember, the whole story is spinning about how fragile our existence maybe and how straight one can become when being in such conditions. I mean the main character is about to perform rape but would you blame him? Yes, of course. I've been a couple of months in Vietnam, but not in that special place. Next time I hope. I hope the director will still be shooting so that we can watch a movie that flavors the very feel of that Country and its people..

When I saw this film at the Palm Springs Film Festival I was prepared for a nice slice-of-life movie about a time and place I would never visit in any other way. This stunningly beautiful film delivers that and so much more. Set in Vietnam during the occupation by the French in the 1930's Bufalo Boy tells the story of a teenage boy who becomes a man when he leads his family's only hope for survival, two water buffalo, out of their flooded homeland to forage on higher ground. With this debut, the director combines riveting action/adventure, poignant relationships, powerful performances and excellent photography. He immerses us in a way of life that requires more courage in order to survive one day than most of us will have to summon in a life-time. Like a character with a starring role, the water is always there, always changing, always influencing the lives of those who depend on it to nurture them and fight with it to keep it from destroying them. Out soon in DVD but well worth the effort to see it on a large screen if you can.