Buffalo Boy [DVD] [2004]

A teenager coming of age in Vietnam in the '40s is faced with new challenges and troubling news as he asserts his independence in this drama. Kim (Le The Lu) is a 15-year-old living in a rural area where a six-month rainy season causes frequent flooding, threatening the lives of the water buffalo which are crucial to the livelihood of the farmers. Eager to prove himself, Kim is given the important task of leading two buffalo to higher ground by his father Dinh (Nguyen Huu Thanh), but the flooding proves to be more than Kim counted on, and he returns with the news that one of the animals died during the journey. After an angry confrontation with Dinh, Kim strikes out on his own and goes to work for a farmer named Det (Kra Zan Sram), while striking up a friendship with Ban (Nguyen Thi Kieu Trihn), a woman who works with Det. Kim and Dinh resolve their differences shortly before Dinh's passing, but now Kim must deal with the responsibilities of burying his father and the startling revelation that his mother is not who he believed she was.~Mark Deming