Cinematic Releases: Bo Gia (Dad, I'm Sorry)(2021) - Reviewed

Courtesy of 3388 Films

Known as ‘the movie that beat Avengers: Endgame in Vietnam’, Bo Gia (Dad, I’m Sorry) made history again recently by becoming the very first Vietnamese film to cross the $1 million mark in box office returns in the United States.  A new and unexpected sensation appearing out of nowhere in multiplexes, this dysfunctional family dramedy by Vietnamese comedian turned actor/director Tran Thanh and co-director Vu Ngoc Dang is one of the more unique filmgoing experiences of 2021.

 

Courtesy of 3388 Films

Adapted from his own hit YouTube web series of the same name, director Tran stars as Ba Sang, a middle-aged motorbike rider living in the slums of Saigon with his bickering family and young son Woan (Tuan Tran).  Woan, a YouTuber growing in popularity with hopes of a better life in the city beyond the flooded alleyways of Saigon, finds himself caught between advancing himself and caring for his human doormat father who lets his extended family relatives walk all over him constantly.  Ba Sang means well but to a self-destructive degree which extends to small time hoods hustling his family for money to pay off his drunken reprobate brother.
 
The first thing one notices watching Bo Gia is the location which will remind some viewers of the slumgullion pit lived in by the characters of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite.  Presenting Saigon as well as Ho Chi Minh City on a wide canvas digitally photographed by Diep The Vinh, Bo Gia is a glimpse of contemporary Vietnamese life as never seen on the big screen before.  As an ensemble comedy it’s mostly fine though there will be some gags that play over better for Vietnamese moviegoers than others.  Acting wise, Tran Thanh and Tuan Tran are quite good and are tasked with many scenes of either shouting or crying as familial disputes come to blows.

Courtesy of 3388 Films

Despite being a bit unpolished, melodramatic and overlong at times, Bo Gia was truly an interesting moviegoing experience with what is clearly the birth of new Vietnamese cinema reaching an international audience.  A new forward step for Asian-Pacific international moviemaking, Bo Gia won’t amaze or break new ground but as such it is a solid little family dramedy from a country we rarely if ever see major films from.  Moreover it represents the arrival of Vietnam in the world cinema marketplace as a new force to be reckoned with.

--Andrew Kotwicki