Wild Field

Wild Field (1979)

Cánh đồng hoang

DARLING! DARLING!

In Dong Thap Muoi during the days of the Vietnam War, Ba Do, Sau Xoa and their little child live in a small shack in the middle of an abandoned wetland zone. They are entrusted with the mission of maintaining Viet Minh's lines of communication in the area. Daily life goes on as the small family looks out for death from above.

Date of release
1979-04-30
TMDB
6.5 / 10 (4)
Runtime
1h 35m
Genres
War, Drama
Director
Nguyễn Hồng Sến

Casting

Interesting facts

The Abandoned Field: Free Fire Zone is a 1979 Vietnamese drama film directed by Nguyễn Hồng Sến. It won the Golden Prize and the Prix FIPRESCI at the 12th Moscow International Film Festival.

Production

Writer Nguyen Quang Sang—famous for The Ivory Comb (Chiếc lược ngà) and the screenwriter of this film—shared: "I had the idea for Cánh đồng hoang screenplay back in 1966; that year, I visited the Dong Thap Muoi battlefield and captured some unique images of the war there... yet it wasn't until December 18, 1978, that I actually began writing Cánh đồng hoang..."

The infant character in the film was played by Nguyen Van Thuan, the son of Nguyen Van Viet and the nephew of director Hong Sen. Thuan was only four months old when director Hong Sen scouted for actors, and nine months old when the film crew arrived to shoot. Today, Thuan is a millionaire living in Dong Thap Muoi.

The role of the wife was played by actress Thuy An, who was also director Hong Sen's wife. The Season of the Strong Wind (Mùa gió chướng) marked her entry into cinema (1978), followed by a string of films that became "blockbusters" of that era: The Face-Up Card (Ván bài lật ngửa), Saigon Commandos (Biệt động Sài Gòn), The Season of Rising Waters (Mùa nước nổi), and The Whirlwind Zone (Vùng gió xoáy)...

As of 2003—when the film The Orphaned Monkey (Con khỉ mồ côi) was produced—Cánh đồng hoang remained the only screenplay Nguyen Quang Sang had written purely out of spontaneous inspiration, whereas most of his other scripts were commissioned or created during participation in creative workshops.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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