Film Review: Xich lo

Director: Tran Ahn Hung

A 1995 Vietnamese language film set deep in the heart of Ho Chui Minh City (formerly Saigon) which follows a cyclo/rickshaw driver who cycles people round the city earning a modest amount, his world is rocked when local gangs start threatening him for working on their turf. He unwittingly gets involved in the murky underworld of local gangs and drugs within the city, something he is too young and naive to understand.

A strange feature of the film is that nobody in the film uses their name, the cyclo rider's family are known by their relation to him but none of the gang members etc ever use names within the film. It gives the entire film a distant and impersonal touch that carries on throughout the film as the gang members never really show who they really are. The only character given a name is a merciless assassin called Mr. Lullaby who before slashing a mans throat describes the near death experiences he's had and that he feels the mans pain as he awaits death, this leads to a horrifying scene where he sings a lullaby to the man as he kills him and watches him die.

Cyclo driver (Le Van Loc)

The films intensity is palpable in the stifling heat of Saigon and the hardships faced everyday by families in the city is grimly displayed. The allure of a life of crime is even higher in a city stricken with people living just above the poverty line but never has joining a criminal gang been less appealing when we see drugs being transported in pig carcasses, blowing up rival cyclo business and the usual street gun fights. This couldn't be much further from the high life of The Godfather if it tried.

The acting is incredibly real but the plot wavers at many points down dead ends that should have been left on the cutting room floor, a twenty minute window in the middle of film tells us very little about anything except to serenade us with some slightly odd music. It's a film that tries to set the mood in a very distinctive style and it isn't always something that works, the score makes the film feel very dated with cheap musical effects that are a dis-service to the rest of the film.

2.5/4 Intriguing yet at times baffling film