Cyclo 1996

The film centers on an 18-year-old cyclo driver, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, who becomes an orphan after his father—himself a cyclo taxi driver—dies in a collision with a truck. His father had hoped for a better life for him, but harsh odds and family hardship force the boy to take over the family business, pedaling a cyclo through the teeming streets of Ho Chi Minh City.

He shares a small, weathered home with his aging grandfather, who still repairs tires despite his frail health; his younger sister, who shines shoes for customers at local restaurants; and his older sister, who carries water at the market. Their quiet, precarious existence is a fragile balance of work, care, and small joys that keeps them clinging to hope.

That fragile balance is shattered when a gang steals the cyclo, leaving the boy unable to pay the debt to his employer, the Lady. With no other option, he is drawn into a criminal underworld ruled by a brooding gang leader known as the Poet. The Poet’s influence stretches far, and it isn’t long before the older sister also falls under his sway, becoming a prostitute as part of the power play surrounding the gang. The two develop complicated feelings, and she even visits the Poet’s home where the poet is beaten by his father, furious about the life he has chosen.

As the driver tries to make a place for himself within the gang, the Poet introduces him to a ruthless figure named Mr. Lullaby, who slits a victim’s throat while singing a lullaby. Ho Chi Minh City slides into a violent gang war, and the cyclo driver seeks revenge by blinding one eye of the gang leader who stole his bike. He goes to the Lady to repay part of his debt, but she refuses and remains focused on her mentally disabled son, who is covered in yellow paint.

The Poet tasks the cyclo driver with carrying out a murder. Two accomplices hand him a gun and teach him how to pull the trigger, also giving him a bottle of pills to ease anxiety—though they warn him not to overdo it. The Poet and the driver’s sister visit his childhood hideaway, and she ends up in a nightclub with a client who abuses her. When the client offers compensation, the Poet kills him and later takes his own life by setting his room on fire on New Year’s Eve.

Tragedy compounds the driver’s trials when the Lady’s son is fatally struck by a fire truck rushing to fight a blaze. In a moment of despair, the driver drinks, ingests two pills, and begins to hallucinate in his flat. He cannot complete the assigned hit and, in a desperate act, coats himself in blue paint and shoots himself twice. The next morning, on Vietnamese New Year’s Day, two gang members find him badly wounded. The Lady, moved by the driver’s resemblance to her deceased son—who also used to paint himself blue—spares his life, releasing him from the gang.

The film closes with a somber, memory-soaked image: the cyclo driver, reflecting on his father, drives his bike once more, accompanied by his grandfather and sisters as they steer through the crowded urban streets, carrying the weight of loss, loyalty, and the stubborn endurance of family.