Owl and the Sparrow (Vietnamese, 2007)

Cast: HanThi Pham, Cat Ly, The Lu Le, Trong Hai

Thuy (Han Thi Pham) is an orphan living on the outskirts of Saigon city under the care of her uncle (Trong Hai) who more than acting a guardian puts her to work in his bamboo factory. Aside from hard labor, the girl of less than 10 endures harsh treatment at the hands of a tyrant uncle. Deciding she'd had enough, Thuy runs away with very little to subsist on to Saigon city. In the city rife with other orphaned street children her own age, Thuy struggles to get by first selling postcards and then settling on selling flowers dressed in a school uniform. Barely scraping by, with no hope of going to school let alone a stable future, and sleeping on the streets at night Thuy tugs at your heart strings.
Through the course of her flower selling and loitering about, she meets an air hostess staying in the city for the week. Lan, the pretty air hostess despite a stable career has trouble finding a loving relationship. Caught in an affair going nowhere with a married man, she feels more and more desolate and unable to disjoint herself from the muffled state of affairs. Thuy also runs into a zoo keeper Hai (The Lu Le) who incidentally happens to be single. Both Lan and the zoo keeper let Thuy into their lives. Lan offers Thuy sleeping quarters in her room at night instead of the street, and Hai feeds in her a love for animals. While Thuy dreams of bringing these two together, her uncle doggedly searches for her all around the city. Thuy's little sliver of happiness is shortlived when the state services take her away to a children's home.
Does life throw Thuy a chance at a loving home and future?


Rating: Four stars.