Boat People 1982

The film unfolds through the eyes of the Japanese photojournalist Shiomi Akutagawa. Three years after he covered Danang during the communist takeover, he is invited back to Vietnam to document life after the war. Guided by a government minder to a New Economic Zone near Danang, he encounters a seemingly cheerful scene: schoolchildren singing songs that praise Ho Chi Minh. Yet this “happiness” is a carefully staged lie meant to deceive foreign reporters.

Back in Danang, Akutagawa witnesses a harsh side of life he hadn’t anticipated. A fire rages, and he is beaten by police for taking photos without permission. He also watches the police assault a supposed “reactionary.” Later, a family is forced to leave the city for the New Economic Zone, and he wonders why they would reject a move that’s allegedly for their own good—an irony that lingers as he recalls the smiling children.

In the city, he meets Cam Nuong and her family. Her mother—Cam Nuong’s Mother—keeps a secret life as a prostitute to support her children. Cam Nuong has two younger brothers, Nhac, who talks like an American street-smart kid, and Lang, the younger one fathered by a Korean who serviced Cam Nuong’s mother. From Cam Nuong, Akutagawa learns the grim realities of life under communism in Danang, including the chilling detail of children scouring freshly executed corpses for valuables at the so‑called “chicken farm.”

One day, Nhac uncovers an unexploded ordnance while scavenging, and the explosion tragically ends his life. At the same “chicken farm,” Akutagawa encounters To Minh, a young man just released from the New Economic Zone. To Minh tries to rob Akutagawa’s camera, but he is captured and sent back to the NEZ. Akutagawa leverages his connections with an official to trail him there, where he witnesses the inmates’ brutal mistreatment.

When he returns to the place where the smiling children once sang, he discovers them sleeping naked in overcrowded barracks, a stark reversal of the earlier façade of progress and joy. Meanwhile, To Minh hatches a plan to flee the country with a friend named Thanh. During a dangerous duty dismantling landmines, Thanh is blown up, and To Minh eventually boards a boat hoping to escape; however, the plan falls apart as a Vietnamese patrol boat stops them, shooting into the boat and killing everyone on board while seizing their valuables.

Cam Nuong’s mother is arrested again, this time for prostitution and forced to confess publicly. She takes her own life by impaling herself with a hook. In a bid to help Cam Nuong and her brother escape, Akutagawa decides to sell his camera. On the night of the ship’s departure, he joins them by carrying a diesel container, but they are discovered. He is shot at, and the container explodes, burning him to death.

The film closes with Cam Nuong and her brother aboard the boat, their faces lit with the quiet hope of a freer life ahead, as the harsh realities of the world they left behind continue to echo in their memories.