MovieChat Forums > Heaven & Earth (1994) Discussion > Can't say I was on Le Ly's side during h...

Can't say I was on Le Ly's side during her fights with Steve.


She was in the wrong, and could have been a little more grateful in my opinion. For example:

1) Not long after arriving in America, and on the way to the grocery store, she asks why Steve has been in the Marines for so long, and is broke, and still living with his mother. Shouldn't she just be happy that she is not living in Vietnam with the Vietcong.

2)During the argument about Steve buying more guns, of course she has the checkbook in her hand while she is complaining about finances,she gives Steve ultimatums about getting out of HER house if he wants to keep all the guns. Wait a minute, who's house is she in?

3) She sneaks off to start her own secret money making venture by borrowing other asians cash, all the while she secretly keeps in touch with her old boyfriend in Vietnam.

What a great wife.Sure sounds grateful.She's honest,loving,truthful,oh wait, no she isn't.

reply

He wasn't that truthful either. And he was willing to steal their children and take them far away from her, even when she wanted to try and make it work.

As to your points

1) As I recall, that scene wasn't an argument as much as unexplained questions being answered.

2) Le Ly has been forced into situations no person should ever deserve to be forced into. She's learned to fight fire with fire, she's used to being independent in the eyes of leering, vile men. Steve wasn't vile, but he was drunk and handling guns. Le Ly is also a Buddhist, and wouldn't want her kids knowing how to handle guns and learning how to kill.

3) What, she couldn't make money when her husband couldn't? She's borrowing money, as you said, which is the same as loaning, in the sense that she's gonna pay them back. And as for the keeping in touch thing.... well, it's not like she still loved him or anything. She was telling him about his son. Any father is entitled to know how his son is doing.

reply

He was a deadbeat, a 40 year old man with no money living with his MOTHER. C'mon, no chick wants that as a husband, and if you think otherwise, go ask 'em.

reply


Same here, even if he married a women from a third world country I made them a U.S. citizen. The women will be looking at him strange because they don't have a place of their own. At 40 years old, even for today that is considered a huge red flag for women.


Your nobody until somebody kills you.

reply

The only point that I can agree with is the first one. I was basically thinking the same thing, especially when it was raining while they were in the car and she was trying to roll the window up. She had a look on her face like she pitied him and the window not rolling up was pitiful. Like Bitch, when I met your ass, you were riding a bike! Did it have any windows on it that you could roll up? Stop acting like this is some new sh!t to you.





Happy 2014!!!

Arimas, Samira

reply

Women are not grateful to men. They are incapable of love. They have 'mother's instinct', which means they can drop any emotional compassion they might be able to otherwise feign, they can drop any 'caring' or whatnot at any time they want.

Mother's instinct is basically a way for women to become completely uncaring, in order to protect their wombturds the most effectively against possible attackers (think of a female bear, if you touch her cubbies - will that bear feel empathy towards you? NO.)

Anyone who trusts a woman, is a fool. Even if that woman turns out to have been trustworthy, it's still a dangerous game, because even that trustworthy woman COULD have turned in a second, if the circumstances so demanded (or she thought they did, or she just got that sudden, crazy whimsy that women often want men to protect women from -- women actually have asked men to protect women from their own whims! Think about that for awhile).

Having anything more to do with women than is absolutely necessary, especially getting hitched, getting married, 'dating', having sex with them, etc. is like blindly choosing from a box of grenades one, and pulling the pin. Now, it MAY not explode (or explode much later), but only a fool would do it. Women are hand grenades, especially nowadays, when a pointing female finger and a couple of words is enough to land an innocent man in jail for years. (Especially with crocodile tears in court)

The vietnamese character in this movie was just a typical woman, executing the typical, man-shaming agenda, where you hide things from your husband, and seek gratification elsewhere, but keep exploiting that well-meaning, faithful man without caring about his feelings.

I completely agree with all your points, and all the fools on this thread should also. But they wouldn't be fools, if they did.. (it takes a lot to see the truth, as you obviously do, original poster).

May I also remind that she was also a MURDERER and a FILTHY PROSTITUTE-WHORE and a slut.

Just because she wears white clothes, and has a cute accent, doesn't mean her vagjay hasn't been pummeled by a thousand cócks.

Remember, this book was written by the reality-version of that character herself. Of course she's going to cast herself on the best possible light, and so when she has to admit having prostituted, it's handled with such silk gloves that I wanted to spew. Maybe Oliver Stone even whitewashed it a bit more.

Yeah, she felt SOO bad, because she's not REALLY a prostitute, (instead of feeling good for the poor young men, who never get any, and who will probably be murdered soon - she should be GLAD to have an opportunity to help them in a way that doesn't even cost her anything!) and when she did that _ONE_ case of prostitution, it was for her BABY, and the boys were really CLEAN and yeah, right.

Doesn't anyone else smell a rat when they see garbage like this?

So, you are completely correct. This hag was:

- Murderer
- Whore
- Unfaithful
- Greedy
- Ungrateful
- Man-shaming (victim-shaming, even)
- Egotistical and proud
- Calculating
- Manipulative
- Exploiting
- Secretive
- Cunning

Instead of helping her husband, she shames him and barks at him, like she owns the world all of the sudden. She should have a little HUMILITY, for crying out loud.

Yeah, the actor is pretty, and it's easy to feel sympathy for her, and especially the WAY the story is told, makes her an 'innocent victim' that we should all pity for the whole duration of the movie.

And her citchen-pseudophilosophy in the end is so corny, audiences should throw this movie back to the stupid hag's and Oliver Stone's face. As if anyone wants a war, or considers such fights worth trying to win. It completely ignores the real forces in the world that cause wars and such, and such superficial 'cool-souding' wannabe-philosophy is not going to change anything.

Women can't help being what they are any more than scorpions can. They WILL shame you, if you don't conform to THEIR ideal of what a man should be. They don't give a shít about your sensitivity, creativity, humanity or any good sides. They don't care what you have offered them, they won't be grateful.

They only want to know why you aren't conforming to their ideal.

What's wrong with living with your parents, no matter what age you are? There are whole CULTURES, where MULTIPLE GENERATIONS live in the same house (ironically, these cultures are sometimes asian). No one goes doing this shaming there. So why should it be practiced elsewhere?

Culture is a human construct, if we can't treat each other like human beings outside those constructs, there's nothing worth saving on this planet.

I would definitely have stayed far away from that snake-hag - she may have been pretty, but that's the only 'good' thing about her. Pity that she exploited even that, just to gain material wealth and exploited good men just to use them as ladders to climb to wealth and power. Or why else would she had created that business so secretively?

You can bet that this story was much more brutal in real life, and the hag in question was even more witchy than the movie shows. And more men were hurt by this hag than shown in the movie.

Now, some of the points about the guns may be good (guns shouldn't even exist, as their only purpose is to murder, and murder is already unlawful - some day, animal murder will also be unlawful).

But she was basically elevated from a toilet world into a relatively civilized place, and all she can do is shoot down her rescuer!

The original poster is correct, but not delving deep enough into how horrible this hag really is.




reply

LOL, good one, troll

reply

The first thing people in Asia will ask you, if you're married and if not, why not. The second question is about work and how much money you make. They're just curious.
I'm half Indonesian, but born and living in Europe, and my Indonesian aunt once asked 19-yo me why I wasn't married and why I still lived with my parents. She could find me a wife in Indonesia, she said, and help me with a job there.



-I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film.-

reply

Le Ly had had it with Steve. He promised her a good life, a house, safety for her and her children (sure he got them out of Vietnam, but were they really SAFE with psycho Steve around? NO!) and he didn't deliver. The only thing he did for her that he promised was bringing her and her kids to the US (what 3 years after he married her?). The rest of it he completely failed on. He was 40+ years old, BROKE, no house, he had severe mental issues due to what he had done in Vietnam. He was abusive toward her and he spent money they didn't have. His family didn't like Le Ly or their kids. She herself says she thinks they like the dogs better than they like her! I'm sorry, but I wouldn't put up with that either!

Just to respond to your points though.

1) She should be happy with not being in Vietnam? Oh please. I think she knows what she had to be grateful for and not be grateful for. She lived a hard life and Steve made a bunch of promises to her that he didn't make good on. I don't blame her for being disappointed and for letting him know about it. He was in the Marines how long? Had no money? No house? Not even a decent car. All he can do is blame it on his ex-wife, bank loan and whatever else. He completely doesn't even take responsibility for the mess he's in and does nothing to try and fix it. All he can do is rattle on about some job that is in the works and how he wants to go back to Asia to get away from his problems.

2) Why wouldn't she call it "her house", she was living there wasn't she? I'm sure Steve didn't work, he didn't take care of the kids, he didn't cook or clean. I bet she did all this while he just sat around drinking and playing with his guns. Don't forget that during this argument Steve actually loaded a gun and pointed it at the back of her head. No matter what she said or did, she did not deserve this.

3) She got a job at a factory and Steve hated this. He wanted her to stay at home and be an Asian slave. She obviously didn't want this and it made him mad. Why would she tell him that she wanted to go one step further and actually start her own business? The way he was acting I wouldn't tell him either. She had every right to borrow money and start her own business without Steve dragging her down. Also, she said it plain as day that she was just communicating to Anh about their son. She obviously had NO relationship with him and when they met at the end of the movie did they kiss? did they run off together? NO!

reply