Tran Anh Hung-Xich lo ('Cyclo') (1995)

In the heart of Ho Chi Minh City, a young cyclo (pedicab driver) transports anonymous passengers through the teeming streets, trying to eke out a meager living for his two sisters and elderly grandfather. When his bicycle is stolen by a local gang, he descends into the gruesome underbelly of this corrupt and violent city. Seduced by easy money, the Cyclo is swept deeper into the crime ring lead by the quietly charismatic Poet (Tony Leung). (DVD Product info.)




Unbeknown to the Cyclo, his older sister (the exquisite star of THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA) has also been mesmerized by the brooding Poet and turns to prostitution to please him. Director Tran Anh Hung, whose brilliant debut THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA established him as a master visualist, fuses the neorealist style of THE BICYCLE THIEF with the kinetic energy of TAXI DRIVER in this gritty tale of innocence lost in the urban jungle of Vietnam. (DVD Product info.)




A young man who struggles through life by earning some money with his bicycle-taxi in Saigon (Ho-Chi-Min-City) gets contact to a group of criminals. They introduce him to the mafia-world of drugs and crime. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0112767/plotsummary)




The city was once named Saigon; it is now called Ho Chi Minh City, and in this powerful second feature by Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung (The Scent of Green Papaya) it looks like a lost circle of hell. (amazon.com --Dave Kehr)




Cyclo is a survey of a society in decay, in which conventional plotting gives way to a series of enigmatic episodes and haunting observations. There are two main characters: Cyclo (Le Van Loc) is a poor urban teenager who scratches out a living operating a bicycle taxi in the murderous city traffic; the Poet (Hong Kong star Tony Leung) is the son of an upper-class family who has depressively drifted into pimping and fencing--wartime rackets still thriving in the new Vietnam. (amazon.com --Dave Kehr)




Images of appalling violence are played against backgrounds of banal, everyday bustle--a buzzing flow of meaningless, insectlike activity. Hung's vision may be dispiritingly bleak, but his filmmaking is vivid and inventive. Each shot is distinguished by a particular quality of lighting, framing, or texture that lifts it out of the ordinary and into the realm of the strange, ravishing, and insinuating. (amazon.com --Dave Kehr)




The incredibly beautiful Tran Nu Yen-Khe once again plays one of the principal characters (Cyclo's sister), along with the talented and immensely popular Asian superstar Tony Leung (Poet) and Le Van Loc in the starring role as Cyclo. As always, Anh Hung Tran's visual artisty is second to none and Tran Nu Yen-Khe is an absolute delight to watch. (amazon.com)