Boat People (film)
Encyclopedia
Boat People is an award-winning Hong Kong
film directed by Ann Hui
, first shown in theaters in 1982. The film stars George Lam
, Andy Lau
, Cora Miao
, and Season Ma. At the second
Hong Kong Film Awards, Boat People won awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best New Performer, Best Screenplay, and Best Art Direction. It was also screened out of competition at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival
. In 2005, at the 24th Hong Kong Film Awards, Boat People was ranked 8th in the list of 103 best Chinese-language films in the past 100 years.
Boat People was the last film in Hui's "Vietnam trilogy". It recounts the plight of the Vietnam
ese people after the communist takeover following the Fall of Saigon
ending the Vietnam War
.
flooded Hong Kong. In 1979, Hui was making the documentary A Boy from Vietnam for the RTHK network. In the process of making the film, she collected many interviews conducted with Vietnamese refugees about life in Vietnam
following the Fall of Saigon
. From these interviews, she directed The Story of Woo Viet
(1981) starring Chow Yun-fat
as Woo Viet, a Vietnamese boat person in Hong Kong, and Boat People.
The People's Republic of China
, just ending a war
with Vietnam, gave Hui permission to film on Hainan Island
. Boat People was the first Hong Kong movie filmed in Communist China. Hui saved a role for Chow Yun-Fat, but because at that time Hong Kong actors working in mainland China
were banned in Taiwan
, Chow Yun-Fat declined the role for fear of being blacklisted. Six months before filming was to start, after the film crew was already on location in Hainan, a cameraman suggested that Hui give the role to Andy Lau
. At that time, Lau was not well known, and his only acting experience was minor roles on television. Hui gave Lau the role and flew him to Hainan before seeing what he looked like.
.
The scene that he sees is actually staged to deceive the foreign press. In Danang, he witnesses a fire and is beaten by the police for taking photos without permission. He also sees the police beating up a "reactionary
". Later he sees a family being forced to leave the city to a New Economic Zone and wonders why they would not want to go there, recalling the happy children that he saw.
In the city, he meets Cam Nuong (Ma) and her family. Her mother secretly works as a prostitute to raise her children. She has two younger brothers, the older one, Nhac, is a street-smart boy who is conversant in American slang, while the younger boy, Lang, was fathered by a Korean that her mother serviced. From Cam Nuong, Akutagawa learns the grisly details of life under communism in Danang, including children searching for valuables in freshly executed corpses in the "chicken farm". One day, Nhac finds an unexploded ordnance
while scavenging in the garbage and is killed.
At the "chicken farm", Akutagawa meets To Minh (Lau), a young man who was just released from the New Economic Zone. After To Minh attempts to rob Akutagawa's camera, he is tried and re-sent to the New Economic Zone. Akutagawa uses his connections with an official to follow him there. At the New Economic Zone, he witnesses the inmates being mistreated. He returns to the location where the smiling children were singing for him earlier, and finds to his horror them sleeping unclothed in overcrowded barracks.
Meanwhile, To Minh has a plan to escape the country with a friend named Thanh. However, while on duty dismantling landmines one day, Thanh is blown up. To Minh gets on the boat to flee the country alone, but he is set up. The Coast Guard is waiting for them and shoots indiscriminately into the boat, killing all on board then taking all the valuables.
Cam Nuong's mother is arrested for prostitution and forced to confess publicly. She committs suicide by impaling herself with a hook. Akutagawa decides to sell his camera to help Cam Nuong and her brother leave the country. On the night of the ship's departure, Akutagawa helps them by carrying a container of diesel. However, they are discovered and he is shot at. The diesel container blows up, burning Akutagawa to death. The film ends with Cam Nuong and her brother safely on the boat, looking forward to a new life at a freer place.
and won 5, including Best Film and Best Director. In 2005, it was ranked 8th of 103 best Chinese-language films in the past 100 years in a ceremony commemorating 100 years since the birth of Chinese-language cinema. The list was selected by 101 filmmakers, critics, and scholars.
director. The film was very successful during its run in theaters, grossing HK$
15,475,087, breaking records and playing to packed theaters for months. Many viewers see the film as an analogy for Hong Kong after being returned to China
(which was being negotiated at the time), with the communist Vietnamese government standing in for the communist Chinese government and warning that life in Hong Kong after the handover will be similar to life in Vietnam after the communist takeover. In Hong Kong, the film was nominated for 12 categories at the Hong Kong Film Award in 1983 and won 5, including Best Film.
The film was also shown in many international film festivals, including the 1983 Cannes Film Festival
. Many international critics found the film powerful, including Serge Daney
in Libération
, Lawrence O'Toole in Motion Picture Review, and David Denby
in New York Magazine. At the New York Film Festival
, it elicited unusual attention because of its perceived political content (unlike the usual kung-fu Hong Kong films that Western audiences were accustomed to) and high production value. Richard Corliss
of Time Magazine wrote "[l]ike any movie...with a strong point of view, Boat People is propaganda", and that "[t]he passions Boat People elicits testify...to Hui's skills as a popular film maker." Janet Maslin
in The New York Times
observed that Hui "manipulates her material astutely, and rarely lets it become heavy-handed" and that scenes in the film "feel like shrewdly calculating fiction rather than reportage."
However, many critics at the New York Film Festival criticized the film's political content, such as J. Hoberman
, Renee Shafransky, and Andrew Sarris
, all writing in The Village Voice
. They objected to what they saw as the one-sided portrayal of the Vietnamese government and the lack of historical perspective. Some others found it politically simplistic and sentimental.
, a government that had recently fought a war with Vietnam, many see it as anti-Vietnam propaganda despite Hui's protestations. The New York Times wrote that the film's harsh view of life in communist Vietnam was not unexpected, given the PRC government's enmity to the Vietnamese. Hui emphasized her decision to depict the suffering of Vietnamese refugees based on extensive interviews she conducted in Hong Kong. She insisted that the PRC government never requested that she change the film's content to propagandize against Vietnam, and that they only told her that "the script had to be as factually accurate as possible." She denied that the situation in Vietnam was grossly exaggerated in the film, such as the scene of the boat being attacked by the Coast Guard - she was inspired by news reports of a guard ship creating whirlpools to sink a boat carrying boat people.
At the Cannes Film Festival, some left-wing sympathizers protested against the film's inclusion, and it was dropped from the main competition. This was reportedly done at the behest of the French government, seeking to solidify its relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
In the Republic of China (Taiwan), the film, along with all of Hui's other work, was banned because it was filmed on Hainan, an island in the People's Republic of China.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
film directed by Ann Hui
Ann Hui
Ann Hui On-Wah is a Hong Kong film director, film producer and occasional screenwriter, one of the most critically acclaimed amongst the Hong Kong New Wave.-Early life:...
, first shown in theaters in 1982. The film stars George Lam
George Lam
George Lam Chi Cheung, also known professionally by his surname Lam, is a Hong Kong-based veteran Cantopop singer and actor of Xinhui area origin. Lam studied at the Diocesan Boys' School in Kowloon, Hong Kong...
, Andy Lau
Andy Lau
Andy Lau MH, JP is a Hong Kong Cantopop singer, actor, and film producer. Lau has been one of Hong Kong's most commercially successful film actors since the mid-1980s, performing in more than 160 films while maintaining a successful singing career at the same time...
, Cora Miao
Cora Miao
Cora Miao is a Chinese actress who worked predominantly in Hong Kong films. During her career she was nominated for four Hong Kong Film Awards and four Golden Horse Film Festival awards, winning one. She won Miss Photogenic award in Miss Hong Kong Pageant 1976. She is married to film director...
, and Season Ma. At the second
2nd Hong Kong Film Awards
-Best Film:-Best Director:-Best Screenplay:-Best Actor:-Best Actress:-Best New Performer:-Best Cinematography:-Best Film Editing:-Best Art Direction:-Best Action Direction:-Best Original Film Score:-Best Original Film Song:...
Hong Kong Film Awards, Boat People won awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best New Performer, Best Screenplay, and Best Art Direction. It was also screened out of competition at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival
1983 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*William Styron *Henri Alekan *Yvonne Baby *Sergei Bondarchuk *Youssef Chahine *Souleymane Cissé *Gilbert de Goldschmidt *Mariangela Melato *Karel Reisz...
. In 2005, at the 24th Hong Kong Film Awards, Boat People was ranked 8th in the list of 103 best Chinese-language films in the past 100 years.
Boat People was the last film in Hui's "Vietnam trilogy". It recounts the plight of the Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
ese people after the communist takeover following the Fall of Saigon
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front on April 30, 1975...
ending the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
.
Production
In the late 1970s, a great number of Vietnamese refugeesBoat people
Boat people is a term that usually refers to refugees, illegal immigrants or asylum seekers who emigrate in numbers in boats that are sometimes old and crudely made...
flooded Hong Kong. In 1979, Hui was making the documentary A Boy from Vietnam for the RTHK network. In the process of making the film, she collected many interviews conducted with Vietnamese refugees about life in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
following the Fall of Saigon
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front on April 30, 1975...
. From these interviews, she directed The Story of Woo Viet
The Story of Woo Viet
The Story of Woo Viet is a Hong Kong political drama film made by director Ann Hui in 1981. Actor Chow Yun-fat played the title character, Woo Viet. The assistant director was Stanley Kwan and the action choreographer was Ching Siu-tung.The movie was one of the first few political dramas made in...
(1981) starring Chow Yun-fat
Chow Yun-Fat
Chow Yun-fat, SBS is an actor from Hong Kong. He is best known in Asia for his collaboration with filmmaker John Woo in heroic bloodshed genre films A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Hard Boiled; and to the West for his role as Li Mu-bai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon...
as Woo Viet, a Vietnamese boat person in Hong Kong, and Boat People.
The People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, just ending a war
Sino-Vietnamese War
The Sino–Vietnamese War , also known as the Third Indochina War, known in the PRC as and in Vietnam as Chiến tranh chống bành trướng Trung Hoa , was a brief but bloody border war fought in 1979 between the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam...
with Vietnam, gave Hui permission to film on Hainan Island
Hainan
Hainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, of its land mass is Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name...
. Boat People was the first Hong Kong movie filmed in Communist China. Hui saved a role for Chow Yun-Fat, but because at that time Hong Kong actors working in mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
were banned in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, Chow Yun-Fat declined the role for fear of being blacklisted. Six months before filming was to start, after the film crew was already on location in Hainan, a cameraman suggested that Hui give the role to Andy Lau
Andy Lau
Andy Lau MH, JP is a Hong Kong Cantopop singer, actor, and film producer. Lau has been one of Hong Kong's most commercially successful film actors since the mid-1980s, performing in more than 160 films while maintaining a successful singing career at the same time...
. At that time, Lau was not well known, and his only acting experience was minor roles on television. Hui gave Lau the role and flew him to Hainan before seeing what he looked like.
Characters
- Shiomi Akutagawa (George LamGeorge LamGeorge Lam Chi Cheung, also known professionally by his surname Lam, is a Hong Kong-based veteran Cantopop singer and actor of Xinhui area origin. Lam studied at the Diocesan Boys' School in Kowloon, Hong Kong...
): a Japanese photojournalist who returns to Vietnam to report about life after the war - Cam Nuong (Season Ma): 14-year-old girl that Akutagawa meets in Danang
- To Minh (Andy LauAndy LauAndy Lau MH, JP is a Hong Kong Cantopop singer, actor, and film producer. Lau has been one of Hong Kong's most commercially successful film actors since the mid-1980s, performing in more than 160 films while maintaining a successful singing career at the same time...
): a young man who hopes to leave the country, sent to the New Economic Zone - Officer Nguyen (Shi Mengqi): a French-educated Vietnamese official who gave half his life to the revolution; disillusioned with life after the war
- Nguyen's mistress (Cora MiaoCora MiaoCora Miao is a Chinese actress who worked predominantly in Hong Kong films. During her career she was nominated for four Hong Kong Film Awards and four Golden Horse Film Festival awards, winning one. She won Miss Photogenic award in Miss Hong Kong Pageant 1976. She is married to film director...
): a Chinese woman who is involved with black-market trade, and a contact for people seeking to leave the country, secretly having an affair with To Minh
Plot
The film is shown through the point of view of a Japanese photojournalist named Shiomi Akutagawa (Lam). Three years after covering Danang during the communist takeover, Akutagawa is invited back to Vietnam to report on life after the war. He is guided by a government minder to a New Economic Zone near Danang and is shown a group of schoolchildren happily playing, singing songs praising Ho Chi MinhHo Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
.
The scene that he sees is actually staged to deceive the foreign press. In Danang, he witnesses a fire and is beaten by the police for taking photos without permission. He also sees the police beating up a "reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
". Later he sees a family being forced to leave the city to a New Economic Zone and wonders why they would not want to go there, recalling the happy children that he saw.
In the city, he meets Cam Nuong (Ma) and her family. Her mother secretly works as a prostitute to raise her children. She has two younger brothers, the older one, Nhac, is a street-smart boy who is conversant in American slang, while the younger boy, Lang, was fathered by a Korean that her mother serviced. From Cam Nuong, Akutagawa learns the grisly details of life under communism in Danang, including children searching for valuables in freshly executed corpses in the "chicken farm". One day, Nhac finds an unexploded ordnance
Unexploded ordnance
Unexploded ordnance are explosive weapons that did not explode when they were employed and still pose a risk of detonation, potentially many decades after they were used or discarded.While "UXO" is widely and informally used, munitions and explosives of...
while scavenging in the garbage and is killed.
At the "chicken farm", Akutagawa meets To Minh (Lau), a young man who was just released from the New Economic Zone. After To Minh attempts to rob Akutagawa's camera, he is tried and re-sent to the New Economic Zone. Akutagawa uses his connections with an official to follow him there. At the New Economic Zone, he witnesses the inmates being mistreated. He returns to the location where the smiling children were singing for him earlier, and finds to his horror them sleeping unclothed in overcrowded barracks.
Meanwhile, To Minh has a plan to escape the country with a friend named Thanh. However, while on duty dismantling landmines one day, Thanh is blown up. To Minh gets on the boat to flee the country alone, but he is set up. The Coast Guard is waiting for them and shoots indiscriminately into the boat, killing all on board then taking all the valuables.
Cam Nuong's mother is arrested for prostitution and forced to confess publicly. She committs suicide by impaling herself with a hook. Akutagawa decides to sell his camera to help Cam Nuong and her brother leave the country. On the night of the ship's departure, Akutagawa helps them by carrying a container of diesel. However, they are discovered and he is shot at. The diesel container blows up, burning Akutagawa to death. The film ends with Cam Nuong and her brother safely on the boat, looking forward to a new life at a freer place.
Awards and nominations
Boat People was nominated for 12 awards at the second Hong Kong Film AwardsHong Kong Film Awards
The Hong Kong Film Awards , founded in 1982, are the most prestigious film awards in Hong Kong and among the most respected in mainland China and Taiwan. Award ceremonies are held annually, typically in April. The Awards recognize achievement in all aspects of filmmaking, such as directing,...
and won 5, including Best Film and Best Director. In 2005, it was ranked 8th of 103 best Chinese-language films in the past 100 years in a ceremony commemorating 100 years since the birth of Chinese-language cinema. The list was selected by 101 filmmakers, critics, and scholars.
| Category | Winner/Person nominated | Win |
|---|---|---|
| Best Film | Win | |
| Best Director | Ann Hui | |
| Best Screenplay | Dai An-Ping | |
| Best New Performer | Season Ma | |
| Best Art Direction | Tony Au Tony Au -Biography:He was born in Guangdong. After graduating from high school in 1972, he engaged in fashion design. Afterwards, he studied film at the London Film Academy... |
|
| Best Actor | George Lam | Nod |
| Best Actress | Cora Miao | |
| Best Actress | Season Ma | |
| Best New Performer | Andy Lau | |
| Best Cinematography | Wong Chung-kei | |
| Best Editing | Kin-kin | |
| Best Original Score | Law Wing-fai | |
Reception
Hui considers Boat People one of her favorite movies and many critics consider it her masterpiece. The film brought Hui to international attention and cemented her reputation as a Hong Kong New WaveHong Kong New Wave
The Hong Kong New Wave was a blanket term applied to a number of young, groundbreaking Hong Kong filmmakers of the late 1970s and 1980s, many trained in overseas film programs and with experience in the territory's thriving television drama scene...
director. The film was very successful during its run in theaters, grossing HK$
Hong Kong dollar
The Hong Kong dollar is the currency of the jurisdiction. It is the eighth most traded currency in the world. In English, it is normally abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or alternatively HK$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
15,475,087, breaking records and playing to packed theaters for months. Many viewers see the film as an analogy for Hong Kong after being returned to China
Transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong
The transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China, referred to as ‘the Return’ or ‘the Reunification’ by the Chinese and ‘the Handover’ by others, took place on 1 July 1997...
(which was being negotiated at the time), with the communist Vietnamese government standing in for the communist Chinese government and warning that life in Hong Kong after the handover will be similar to life in Vietnam after the communist takeover. In Hong Kong, the film was nominated for 12 categories at the Hong Kong Film Award in 1983 and won 5, including Best Film.
The film was also shown in many international film festivals, including the 1983 Cannes Film Festival
1983 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*William Styron *Henri Alekan *Yvonne Baby *Sergei Bondarchuk *Youssef Chahine *Souleymane Cissé *Gilbert de Goldschmidt *Mariangela Melato *Karel Reisz...
. Many international critics found the film powerful, including Serge Daney
Serge Daney
Serge Daney was an influential French movie critic who went on from writing film reviews to developing a “television criticism” and onto building a personal theory of the image...
in Libération
Libération
Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...
, Lawrence O'Toole in Motion Picture Review, and David Denby
David Denby (film critic)
David Denby is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B.A...
in New York Magazine. At the New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
, it elicited unusual attention because of its perceived political content (unlike the usual kung-fu Hong Kong films that Western audiences were accustomed to) and high production value. Richard Corliss
Richard Corliss
Richard Nelson Corliss is a writer for Time magazine who focuses on movies, with the occasional article on music or sports. Corliss is the former editor-in-chief of Film Comment...
of Time Magazine wrote "[l]ike any movie...with a strong point of view, Boat People is propaganda", and that "[t]he passions Boat People elicits testify...to Hui's skills as a popular film maker." Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
observed that Hui "manipulates her material astutely, and rarely lets it become heavy-handed" and that scenes in the film "feel like shrewdly calculating fiction rather than reportage."
However, many critics at the New York Film Festival criticized the film's political content, such as J. Hoberman
J. Hoberman
James Lewis Hoberman , also known as J. Hoberman, is an American film critic. He is currently the senior film critic for The Village Voice, a post he has held since 1988.-Education:...
, Renee Shafransky, and Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
, all writing in The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
. They objected to what they saw as the one-sided portrayal of the Vietnamese government and the lack of historical perspective. Some others found it politically simplistic and sentimental.
Controversies
Because the film was produced with the full cooperation of the government of the People's Republic of ChinaPeople's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, a government that had recently fought a war with Vietnam, many see it as anti-Vietnam propaganda despite Hui's protestations. The New York Times wrote that the film's harsh view of life in communist Vietnam was not unexpected, given the PRC government's enmity to the Vietnamese. Hui emphasized her decision to depict the suffering of Vietnamese refugees based on extensive interviews she conducted in Hong Kong. She insisted that the PRC government never requested that she change the film's content to propagandize against Vietnam, and that they only told her that "the script had to be as factually accurate as possible." She denied that the situation in Vietnam was grossly exaggerated in the film, such as the scene of the boat being attacked by the Coast Guard - she was inspired by news reports of a guard ship creating whirlpools to sink a boat carrying boat people.
At the Cannes Film Festival, some left-wing sympathizers protested against the film's inclusion, and it was dropped from the main competition. This was reportedly done at the behest of the French government, seeking to solidify its relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
In the Republic of China (Taiwan), the film, along with all of Hui's other work, was banned because it was filmed on Hainan, an island in the People's Republic of China.
Deviations from reality
- While Vietnamese people normally address each other by their given namesVietnamese nameVietnamese names generally consist of three parts: a family name, a middle name, and a given name, used in that order. The "family name first" order follows the system of Chinese names and is common throughout the Sinosphere , but is different from Chinese, Korean, and Japanese names in having a...
, even in formal situations, the characters in Boat People address each other using surnames. - The film's English title is misleading: Boat People does not tell the story of boat peopleBoat peopleBoat people is a term that usually refers to refugees, illegal immigrants or asylum seekers who emigrate in numbers in boats that are sometimes old and crudely made...
, it instead tells the plight of Vietnamese people under communist rule, the reason causing them to become boat people. The Chinese title, literally meaning "Run Towards the Angry Sea", more accurately describes the film's content. - All the characters in the film speak Cantonese instead of Vietnamese, but Vietnamese is used in written text and when characters sing.