Journey from the Fall Totally Explained

Everything about Journey From The Fall totally explained

In the process of making the film, the director interviewed more than 400 former boat people, some of whom are cast in the movie even though they're not professional actors.
The movie received mostly favorable reviews. In the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, it received an 92% "fresh" among all reviews and 100% among the "cream of the crop" and is currently in the Top 100(27th) Best Movies of 2007. Matt Zoller Seitz of The New York Times remarked that the director "achieves the impossible" and called it a "tearjerker". The Los Angeles Times called it a "superbly wrought saga of loss and survival" and "an example of sophisticated, impassioned filmmaking involving mainly people who lived through the harrowing experiences so unsparingly depicted". Bruce Newman of the San Jose Mercury News called it "heartbreaking" and gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars. Russell Edwards from Variety said it "deserves to be seen by a wider commercial audience" and is "frequently enthralling". New York Magazine had a negative review of the movie, saying that it has "several powerful sequences" but "never quite come[s] alive". Bill White of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was even more critical, suggesting that "this Journey doesn't know where it's going", criticizing the "careless cinematography" and "clumsy stag[ing]".

Controversies

The OC Weekly, an alternative weekly in Orange County, California, published two reviews of the film. The first and longer review was written by R. Scott Moxley, praised the director for "bring[ing] to life the true South Vietnamese experience". The second and much shorter review was published almost a year later, written by Scott Foundas. In his review, Foundas praised the film for being "one of the few movies to depict Vietnam and its aftermath through the eyes of the Vietnamese" but ultimately characterized it as "old-fashioned and even phony". This conclusion brought a flurry of letters to the paper, most disagreeing with Foundas and taking offense at his "phony" characterization, prompting Foundas to clarify his review, claiming that he was "by no means suggesting that the history depicted by the movie didn't happen, but rather that matters were not nearly as black-and-white as Mr. Tran makes them seem".
In Vietnam, where the movie was neither filmed nor shown officially, pirated copies were so prevalent that the government issued orders to confiscate all DVD copies. The film was banned for its "reactionary" content. The government consider the film "defamation" and a "distortion" of its policy of sending people to reeducation camps after 1975. The film was considered such a threat that the Ministry of Public Security's newspaper Công an Nhân dân featured an article warning about the "poisonous film" and claiming that "most overseas Vietnamese are indifferent or critical of this movie". The article also quoted Foundas and several random people in online message boards to bolster its claim.

Release

The movie is distributed by ImaginAsian Pictures, and released in Orange County, New York City, and San Jose on March 23, 2007 to sold-out screenings. With a total gross of $87,442 in its opening weekend, it has the highest opening weekend for any Vietnamese diasporic movie to date. The opening weekend's per-screen average of $21,861 was the highest of any movie that opened on the March 23 weekend (External Link

), and the second weekend's average of $16,513 per screen was number one as well, despite expanding to two additional screens.
As of July 16, the film has grossed over $630,000, despite a limited release that never exceeded fourteen theaters at a time..
Since its opening weekend on March 23, 2007 it has expanded to Dallas, Houston, Washington, DC, San Diego, Chicago, San Francisco, Mountain View, Daly City, Seattle, Berkeley, Honolulu, Atlanta, Portland, Sacramento, Vancouver, and is expanding to other cities throughout the summer in what is called a "rolling release".

Awards

Grand Jury Prize - Amazonas International Film Festival, Brazil
Winner, Best Feature Film – Anchorage International Film Festival
Winner, Best Cinematography - Milano International Film Festival
Winner, Long Nguyen, Best Actor - Newport Beach Film Festival
Special Jury Prize - Newport Beach Film Festival
Audience Award - San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival
Grand Jury Award - San Diego Asian Film Festival
Jury Award - Dallas Asian Film Festival
Winner, Ham Tran, Best Director - Asian Festival of First Film
Winner, Lam Nguyen, Best Producer – Asian Festival of First Film
Audience Award - Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival
Special Project Award - The Princess Grace Foundation, USA
Best Feature Film – Boulder International Film Festival
Winner, Best Feature Film – Vietnamese International Film Festival
Best Independent Film - AZN Asian Excellence Award

The movie wasn't eligible for competition in the Sundance Film Festival even though it was an official selection, due to the fact that it was screened prior at a Korean film festival (only world premiere films at Sundance are eligible for competition).

DVD

The 2-disc DVD is being released on October 31, 2007 which includes a 38-minute The Making of Journey from the Fall, a 135-minute roundtable discussion/commentary with cast and crew, a deleted scene and alternate ending, as well as original theatrical trailer and TV spots.

Cast

Diem Lien as Mai Nguyen

Kieu Chinh as Ba Noi (Grandmother)

Long Nguyen as Long Nguyen

Nguyen Thai Nguyen as Lai Nguyen

Cat Ly as PhuongFurther Information

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