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Heaven and Earth (1993)
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Reviews Counted: 16
Fresh: 8
Rotten:8
Average Rating: 5.2/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 25 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: In this final film of his Vietnam trilogy, Oliver Stone turns his cameras away from the experience of the American combatants to focus on the devastating effect of the war on the Vietnamese people. Starring Hiep Thi Le as Phung Le Ly, it... In this final film of his Vietnam trilogy, Oliver Stone turns his cameras away from the experience of the American combatants to focus on the devastating effect of the war on the Vietnamese people. Starring Hiep Thi Le as Phung Le Ly, it recounts the epic journey of her life, which began in an idyllic village in Central Vietnam living as her people had lived for thousands of years. When the war broke out, she was plunged into a maelstom, trapped between the forces of North and South. Separated from her family, Le Ly was imprisoned by the South Vietnamese, who used an assortment of tactics on her, including electric shock treatment, and upon release from prison, she was raped by a vicious gang of Viet Cong. After escaping to Saigon, she becomes pregnant by an employer and is fired. She turns to prostitution to survive, until Steve Butler (Tommy Lee Jones), an American Special Forces officer, impulsively asks her to marry him and return to America with him. She agrees to marry him and moves with him to San Diego but finds that, after a life in the military, he has a more difficult time adapting to life in the U.S. than she does. HEAVEN AND EARTH is a profoundly moving saga of resiliency in the face of unspeakable suffering. [More]
Starring: Joan Chen, Tommy Lee Jones, Haing S. Ngor, Debbie Reynolds
Starring: Joan Chen, Tommy Lee Jones, Haing S. Ngor, Debbie Reynolds, Hiep Thi Le
Director: Oliver Stone
Director: Oliver Stone
Reviews for Heaven and Earth
What Oliver Stone has created is his Mrs. Miniver for the Vietnam era.
Mr. Stone tells this tale vigorously, but he has the wrong cinematic vocabulary for his heroine's essentially passive experience.
Touches the heart not only as a cross-cultural treasure but as Oliver Stone's most soulful movie.
Heaven has so many themes, ranging from Buddhist spirituality to feminism, it ends up with none.
Heaven and Earth has the epic scope one would expect from a film of this magnitude, but it lacks much of the narrative strength of Stone's first two Vietnamese tales.
This is the first time [Stone] has tried to place himself inside a woman's imagination, and that he succeeds so well is due partly...to an extraordinary performance by Hiep Thi Le in the leading role.
I found this story moving and at times wrenching...Oliver Stone has made his best film about Vietnam.
Stone has a keen directorial eye, and Heaven and Earth is usually interesting to watch.
Related Forums for Heaven and Earth
by: Cierra 2/26/01
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