Mr. Lullaby should have rocked you by now. Somebody up there likes you.
In this stunning, compelling and harrowing Vietnamese film, an eighteen year old cyclo driver finds himself being drawn into a web of crime and violence when his cycle is stolen and he becomes increasingly desperate to provide for his grandparents and siblings. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, his sister is being seduced by a local gangster herself and being drawn into a trap of her own. This movie aims to be gritty and shocking and it is both; it’s also incredibly artistic visually. Tran has an eye for off the wall compositions and vibrant colors and he knows how to use bloodletting to great visual effect.
The cast is really phenomenal. The true star of the movie is Tony Leung as the Poet, a troubled local gangster that is a man profoundly broken emotionally by the trauma he’s been through and the trauma he’s visited on others. It’s a performance anchored in a sorrowful existential angst; you get the feeling the Poet doesn’t really remember how he became the man he is, but he’s filled with longing for a life that’s less drenched in cruelty, but the man he is now doesn’t even know how to express those longings. It’s an astonishing performance. Le Van Loc is very good as the young Cyclo; the tragedy isn’t that he’s being drawn into this web of crime and violence against his will – it’s that once he’s taken those first few steps, he discovers that he likes this life and watching him become ever more blank of expression and sociopathic of behavior is frightening. As his sister, Nu Yen-Khe Tran has a beautiful vulnerability and uncertainty. Nhu Quynh Nguyen takes what could be a stock character as a crime family matriarch and invests her with a lot of pain and sadness. Van Day Nguyen makes a huge impact in a small role as a mob killer known as Mr. Lullaby; he’s only in one scene, but it’s an incredibly scary scene, like something from a horror movie.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’ll just say it: Cyclo is a punishingly sad movie, a movie that, for me, eventually reached the true catharsis of tragedy. Every story being told in this movie is a tragedy; almost every character is already trapped, fighting to escape a trap or being slowly drawn into a trap. It’s a really disturbing movie in a lot of ways. The violence is quite graphic and there are a few scenes that feel like they’re from a straight up horror movie in terms of the dread and/or the violence. Emotionally, it’s devastating as well; there’s a scene here set to, of all songs, Radiohead’s Creep that is absolutely painful to watch. So, anyway, what we have here is a masterpiece. If I have any quibbles at all, it’s with the final shot of the movie, but I’m going to be honest and say that I have my doubts as to what exactly Tran is up to with it. No spoilers, but I’m not entirely sure if it’s . . . real, if that makes any sense. Still, even if it is a bad ending, which I’m not sure about, it’s an absolutely harrowing masterpiece. Not for the faint of heart, but, if you can take the darkness, it’s an unbelievably brilliant film. 4 stars.
tl;dr – crime drama boasts a trio of brilliant lead performances in this dark, gritty tale of innocents seduced to the dark side; a shocking, violent, harrowing, disturbing & tragic masterpiece. 4 stars.