Plot summary: noble, fearless Viet Cong extract revenge on slovenly, poorly disciplined, and easy to despise group of American international war criminals.
sharewhat's with the whining?
Lee...
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Cogito, ergo sum...
If you're a redneck who likes to deify his country, you'll love the title of this post!!
By the way, the Americans weren't poorly disciplined, and both sides were represented evenly. You sound like you didn't even see the movie.
i know several nam vets and poorly diciplined doesnt even begin to describe them.
crazy drug addicts.
Oh you poor Palinite- it is possible to love (or at least have a passing fondness for) Amerika and this movie also.
There were very few John Wayne "Green Beret" heroes in the lost cause known as the Vietnam Conflict- or is it the Iraq Conflict. I get the two confused.
I hate the world so I cover all bases
I run around in circles, it is my metaphor
I'm sorry, but I must disagree with your post.
My wife brought this home for me to watch. I had never heard of it or Uwe whatever.
I thought the action was pretty good for a war movie. I thought the characters were totally undeveloped, but I just took it that the individual characters were less important than the setting.
The claustrophobic tunnel scenes were quite riveting. I have read the Tunnels of Cu Chi and many other books about the Vietnam War. I missed it by 2 years. From what I have read, I saw nothing glaringly inaccurate about the tunnel scenes.
Each US death was very upsetting to me as an American. All of the deaths were unfortunate in my perspective as a human being.
I thought the attack on the camp scene was a little hard to believe, as many of the GIs who were killed could not possibly been caught by surprise after the initial gunfire. I also thought the presence of jeeps in the middle of nowhere was odd.
Sorry, I just don't see this as an Anti-American film, or a bunch of GIs deservedly being slaughtered in a one-sided fight. Many VC were shot in the camp attack, one was drowned in the river, the kids and the mom died in the tunnel/cave, and more died in the airstrike. One VC was killed in the tunnel and the GI had to hack him apart to get around him. The body count was fairly even. The VC woman was sickened about stabbing the GI thru the neck to the point of throwing up. The GI in the cave told her he wouldn't harm her kids and died trying to un-bury them. The other GI did NOT execute the dying VC in the cave who had been wounded by the grenade.
I had no expectations of this film and was therefore not disappointed. Further, I appreciated it as a tribute to the real tunnel rats and the frightening, dangerous, high stress job they did - an under-featured aspect of that War.
I dont know the film-maker at all. If he is anti-US, then *beep* him. As a body of work, however, I liked this film.
yak-sun
I think your post is pretty fair. Many years ago I too read about the 200-mile labyrinth of underground tunnels and secret chambers that the Viet Cong had dug around Saigon. The tunnels were often rigged with explosive booby traps or punji stake pits. The clever design of the tunnels along with the strategic use of trap doors and air filtration systems rendered American technology mostly ineffective. The campaign in the tunnels of Cu Chi drew me into a alternate fascinating world of claustrophobic desperation; how to survive against enormous odds (heavy bombing) and sheer cunning.
Forced to combat this hidden nightmare army were GIs of legendary skill and courage called Tunnel Rats. armed only with a gun, a knife, a flashlight and a piece of string these guys would enter a tunnel by themselves and travel inch-by-inch cautiously looking ahead for booby traps or cornered PLAF. They fought hand-to-hand against a cruel and ingenious enemy inside the booby-trapped blackness of the tunnels. A kind of lonely micro hidden world while the bigger battles raged elsewhere.
This is the only film I have seen that even begins to depict the situation. I am not interested in the director the cameraman or anyone else behind the making of the film. I enjoyed the film on its own merits because it succeeded in depicting the claustrophobia of the tunnels and the danger and that all this effort was for human to kill human. A very sad situation.
The film could have developed the characters more but then it would have been less pacy and possibly too long. It could have gone further with the hospitals and ammunition factories and cooking facilities in the tunnels, but then it might have turned into a documentary. If anything this film is anti-war not anti US or VC. I for one have some respect for the effort.
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I think the OP is just offended that the movie was not bubbly, pro war propaganda.
Both the VietCong and the Americas died, horrible, painful senseless deaths. The ending is a microcosm of the whole senseless war, and the toll on both countries and their citizens. It's not the usual rose colored glasses used to paint the US military as benevolent heros at all times.
I don't see how it's anti-american. Let alone pro VietCong, since the objective to destroy them and the tunnels was met.
Just a commentary of war that doesn't jive with small minded *beep*
Your comments about the film are dead-on. I agree 100%.
shareThis movie was pretty crap, but considering the director i didn't think it was all that bad, maybe i do hate America
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