Why Boat People, starring Andy Lau and George Lam, Ann Hui’s hit film about post-war Vietnam, displeased the Chinese and French authorities

The director intended Boat People, set in post-war Vietnam, to give context to the flight of people from the country by sea, and based it on refugee testimony

A hit in Hong Kong, where film-goers read into it a message Hui hadn’t meant, China saw the film as critical of communism. France fretted at its Cannes premiere

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Andy Lau as To Minh in a still from Boat People (1982). Ann Hui intended the film to tell a human story that explained why refugees were fleeing Vietnam. Hong Kong film-goers saw it as an allegory of the city’s future under Chinese rule. Photo: Bluebird Film Company

Published: 6:15am, 21 Aug 2022

Ann Hui On-wah’s Boat People is a classic of the Hong Kong New Wave movement that, beginning in the late 1970s, helped establish Hong Kong cinema as a player on the international stage.

The film, which is wholly set in Vietnam in 1978, three years after the Communists took control of the country, was a big local hit when it was released in Hong Kong in 1982.

Hui’s intention was to explain the arrival of thousands of refugees from Vietnam by showing the atrocious conditions that were forcing them to flee. But Hong Kong audiences regarded it as an allegory of what life would be like if the territory returned to Chinese rule – something that Hui has always strenuously denied.

Audiences and critics loved the film. Post writer Helen Li described it as “an intense human drama, well-scripted, with both sympathy and control”, while Post critic Terry Boyce said it demonstrated that Hui was a world-class director whose work deserved international acclaim.

Hui told the Post that Boat People was “the film that I have always wanted to make, a film set against a moving backdrop – how people react to the pressure of society and the times”. She added that she hoped the end result lived up to her aspirations.

The story is a grim one. Japanese photographer Akutagawa (George Lam Chi-cheung) is invited back to Da Nang in central Vietnam three years after the American war ends to document life under the new regime. Initially his visit is stage-managed by officials from the Cultural Bureau, but through his connections, he eventually manages to roam freely.