A Major Disappointment

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This is a very powerful movie, based on a memoir by Loung Un, that depicts the trials of one family in Cambodia. Opening in Phnom Penh, the family is shown to be happy, prosperous and comfortable, living in a beautiful apartment with few worries. "Pa" is an officer in the pro-American government's military. But as the US commitment in neighbouring Vietnam collapses, the US withdraws from Cambodia, and Phnom Penh is overrun with guerrillas from the Khmer Rouge. People are expelled from the city, and the rest of the movie depicts the brutal treatment of the Khmer Rouge toward these refugees who required "re-education," whose personal possessions were taken away and who were forced to work in labour camps, supplying food to the soldiers whole they themselves faced virtual starvation, with many of the children being taught to become killing machines for the new regime. The movie is largely told through the eyes of Loung, and it's certainly eye-opening for viewers, as we're exposed to the inhumanity (on all sides) of warfare.Directed by Angelina Jolie (who I thought did a fabulous job) the film doesn't paint a simplistic portrait of "Khmer Rouge bad, Americans good." It was the US that decided to start a bombing campaign in neutral Cambodia, after all, turning much of the rural population against them and those who were looked on as their allies - mainly the city dwellers, and especially former government officials and soldiers. The decision to film the movie in Cambodian (rather than having the actors speak English with Cambodian accents or dubbing the dialogue into English) was a good one that gave even more of a feel of authenticity to this. The portrayal of Loung (by a Cambodian child actress named Sreymoch Sareum) was superb and powerful. Starting out as a fun-loving, somewhat mischievous little girl, the range of emotions shown as she deals with the nightmare she fell into was absolutely raw. I did find that the last half hour (as Loung finds herself first with the Vietnamese and then in a Red Cross camp) was a little bit confusing.It might help if a viewer has a little bit of knowledge about the history of Cambodia in this period and especially about the Khmer Rouge regime, but it's not vital. The story itself lets you know what you need to know and the heartache you feel for Loung (and her siblings, and really everyone who was caught up in this madness as their worlds were turned upside down) is very deep and very real. It's a powerful experience to watch this. (8/10)

A splendid if somewhat overly long film. It has captured the horrors of the Cambodian nightmare and pointed an accusing finger at the United States and Richard Nixon. The truly stunning aspect of this film is the superb cast of child actors, especially when you consider they are from a culture with little cinematic background or culture and one where young children are more likely to become workers rather than actors. There also is superb film work with wonderful light and shadows, effective lines and patterns and unique aerial shots that look straight down from perhaps a thousand feet on the chequerboard of violence and death with no camera motion. Drones??? Helicopter? It's a unique and effective technique. A well done chronicle of a grim and gory piece of history!

"First they killed my father" tells the story of a young Cambodian girl that flees from the Communists alongside her family, which partly worked for the government. On their long way under the new regime, the family gets separated, tortured and killed. The dream of masses of people turns into a nightmare before her eyes, while her world gets turned upside down.What we see in this movie is plainly awful. We see a young child, who doesn't understand what is happening while politics tear her life apart. The production is of high value, even though in my eyes the movie is a bit long and could have been told in fewer time. This girl is exemplary for many destinies throughout this happenings, which makes the film both important, but at the same time prevent a very individual connection to the main characters. In a way it is more a political statement than a blockbuster.All in all this is a movie for those who want to gain more insight into this particular period of history. It is tremendous and horrifying, but it is, unfortunately, not an excellent film.

The film is honest to the audiences. Angelina has been putting herself inside the most complex political issue of a poor country which lead to kill 2 million people from 1975 to 1979.Follow a young girls who suffered, but survived from the regime. The capacity of empathy is the capacity to put the audience into the situation of the young girl and let them experience her doubt, her pain, her loneliness and her lost.