The Rebel: Dramatic, Action-filled, and Oh-so-sexy!

You may have varying degrees of liking The Rebel (Dòng Máu Anh Hùng, which more literally translates as “Hero Bloodline”) or disliking it, depending on how much a sense of “realism” you’d like to carry with you when watching this movie.  The title becomes even more interesting when read in the context of an essay with a similar title by Albert Camus.  “L'Homme révolté” (also translates as “The Rebel”), written in 1951, argues that the urge for revolt is triggered by a longing for justice.  You can get on your philosophical and political groove and watch this movie with a very critical eye, questioning every bit of dialogue and twist of the plot, or you can just chill and indulge in the usual “Hollywood” ingredients: drama, action (a la Asian—translation: martial arts) and oh-so-sexiness!

Before anyone argues that this movie is produced by a Vietnamese film production company in Sài Gòn and not in Hollywood, I would like to clarify that I am referring to “Hollywood” as a style which is not only limited to movies produced by your usual Hollywood production companies. Rather, I am referring to a style that often blends action, drama, romance, and sex in order to brew a marketable entertainment package with a more-dizzying-than-Bia-Hơi moolah-generating prowess. After all, producers have to pay the bills and need a bit more money for beer and other necessities to keep their sanities. 

While I am not exactly a fan of the “Hollywood style,” I don’t necessarily shun movies fashioned after this genre.  Come to think of it, Chan Phuong Films is gambling $1.5 million USD in capital knowing that the market in Việt Nam alone would not be able to recuperate. In order to continue to produce movies, producer Jimmy Pham Nghiem has to effectively market his work to a broader international market.  However, this is not to say that The Rebel, is just another flick with drama, action, and sexiness.  It is also a movie that confronts more serious issues such as morality, internal conflicts, survival, history, colonialism, violence, and much more.

The Rebel is set in the 1920s during the height of the French-Vietnamese power-struggle. It is about the sojourn of Le Van Cường (Johnny Tri Nguyen), a Vietnamese national educated in Paris and returns to his homeland to work for the French authorities. Caught in the middle of moral conflicts and a subdued sense of patriotism, he often finds himself in confrontation with his associate Sỹ (Dustin Nguyen). The conflict between Cường and Sỹ was further aggravated when Thúy (Ngo Thanh Van) the daughter of a prominent anti-French political figure comes into picture. As Thúy unabashedly questions Cường’s sense of morality, he is pushed to the edge and is forced to redefine his values and sense of national identity.  Dustin, with a paradoxically combined look of gangster/French-finesse, paints an interesting portrait of Vietnamese collaborators during the era of French-Vietnamese confrontations. His character was best articulated by a line delivered with an exact snobbishness by Johnny. Referring to the anti-French authority rebels, Cường tells Sỹ: “Among us, you resemble them most.”

There are a few moments in the movie that make me scratch my head and wonder if there could have been better ways of executing certain scenes. For instance, could Cường, Sỹ and Thúy have really been that fantastic, to the point of being almost superhuman, in their martial arts skills? While it is very tempting to point out more specific observations, I will grab my bottle of Bia Hoi, relax, and let you play the role of the cinephile with a critical eye.

Despite some of the flaws in the movie, I find it very engaging and powerful. While those familiar with the Vietnamese language may criticize Johnny Nguyen’s ability to deliver lines in the vernacular, I nonetheless find his portrayal to be remarkable as he blends like a chameleon from being the snotty Vietnamese Francophone to an angry but respectful son to just another man agonized with a sense of morality and torn by his emotion. Ngo, with her natural beauty and strength of personality, fits the role of a woman symbolic of a nation who refuses to give in to the colonizers. While her internal beauty and serenity remains intact, intrusive forces trigger an anger that reverberates externally. 

Speaking of sexiness, one can either indulge in the sight of Ngo’s slender figure and Johnny’s sculpted body, or get into an even more profound metaphysical abstraction of what makes something sexy. Do you find the idea of forgetting the past for a moment to indulge in pleasure sexy? How about risking one’s life to preserve the dignity of a woman/nation?  No matter what turns you on, don’t let anyone take your sexy back!

The Rebel is a must-see for Vietnamese movie enthusiasts. Director Charlie Nguyen is certainly starting to make waves as he projects Vietnamese movies onto the screen of international cinema. The Rebel had its world premiere in the third biennial Vietnamese Festival in Los Angeles in 2007 and has been featured in the Bangkok International Film Festival, the Austin Film Festival and the Hawaiian International Film Festival.  It is also now available on DVD. Although the movie’s production value is enough reason to watch The Rebel, it is special in a more significant way. While there have been many movies made about the Vietnam War, it is refreshing to see a film that looks at Vietnamese history beyond the Vietnamese-American conflict—more refreshing than an ice-cold Bia Hơi, indeed!