Paul Magne Haakonsen 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.

birck What I love about this film is that it presents the country-Vietnam- in all its glory, warts and all, and makes it a thing of beauty, even when the subject matter is an unscripted night game of pickup street soccer in a poor section of the city. In the rain. The photography and composition are masterful, the pacing is languid, the script is minimal, and what's on screen looks absolutely authentic. It looks as if it were filmed completely on location in Saigon, without sets. Each of the four stories (The American, Woody, Lan, and Teacher Dao) is resolved in a way that it would be resolved only in Vietnam, and the strongest story (in my humble), the story of the dying teacher and the flower-seller, could have taken place centuries ago. I think the film does a great job of showing the viewer layers of Vietnamese culture, of which The American's story, although just as gut-wrenching as the others, is only the latest.

nguyen1215 Three separate stories converge in this movie set in modern-day Vietnam. My favorite story was Woody's, a young child forced to sell watches and lighters out of a briefcase to survive. As a Vietnamese-American, I was eager to see the first movie filmed in post-war Vietnam. It was refreshing to see a film about the nation that didn't focus on the war, a flaw found in too many American-made pictures. Overall, I think that Three Seasons was entertaining and touching, with artful direction by Tony Bui.

sekander You will see lots of comments calling this movie boring. Most of these are by people who still do homework or judge a movie on its body count. That should clue you as to their attention span. Whether intentional or not, plot is not the main focus of this movie. It is languidly paced, reflecting the heat of the Saigon summer it portrays. Perhaps a tone poem to the city, peeking in on the intertwining lives of some of its citizens. If you have any interest in this part of the world, check it out. It is not perfect by any means. Sure, the lack of character development is a little frustrating, especially the Harvey Keitel character, and some of the plot is familiar, but all of these are minor quibbles with a wonderful, evocative film. Thank god this is not another "Focus on the white man in foreign surroundings" movie. I've been to Vietnam twice in the early 90's and enjoyed this update, despite what one reviewer calls inaccuracies.