My Review of Monsoon (2020)

 

Written And Directed by Hong Khaou

Lee: "You should visit your old home."

Kit: "Yeah, I'm going to."

After watching The Old Guard 2 the other day, I realised there was a movie that featured Henry Golding that I had been meaning to catch up with. Yup, this one.

In this film, Henry Golding played a British-Vietnamese man named Kit. It's been over thirty years since he set foot in his birth country and the death of his parents was the thing to bring him back to Vietnam.

Throughout the movie, we're dripfed information about why Kit left Vietnam as a child with his parents. There's also plenty of scenes where Kit was reconnecting with an old childhood friend named Lee (David Tran), who happened to be his cousin.

Then there's also Lewis (Parker Sawyers). He's an American who's father fought in the war and there's a nice spark between him and Kit. Their romance was nicely underplayed throughout the film as Kit's journey was the bigger story priority.

There's a lot of scenes in this film that are quiet and intense. There's plenty of moments where Kit's mulling over his family's past and it's interesting to see how much Kit had to remember as the movie progressed. 

The journey Kit took to find the right place to scatter his parents took him into very interesting places and at times, it did feel like we were sightseeing with Kit as a character. The movie did end on a rather nice note with Kit putting his ghosts in the past. 

- Kit and his family were boat refugees after the Vietnam War. Kit had even forgotten how to speak Vietnamese.

- The film was originally meant to be a two hander between Kit and Lewis. The latter was originally intended to be a White American character.

- Standout music: Kumi Solo's I Know What Boys Like.

- Chronology: Set in Vietnam with Kit going from Saigon to Hanoi in the present day.

Monsoon is a lovely film, looking at one man's attempts of reconnecting with his roots. There's a very thoughtful and understated performance from Henry Golding and the whole movie in general feels like that too. 

Rating: 8 out of 10