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Buffalo Boy

2004 · 102 min

A slow, rain-soaked trudge through hardship and hard truths, beautiful and quietly devastating, asking patience as it unfolds.

Overview
Kim is 15; his father and step-mother have two buffalo, their lifeline as subsistence rice farmers. During the rainy season, there's no grass and the buffalo are starving. Kim volunteers to take the beasts inland to find food. On this coming-of-age journey, Kim sees men mistreat women, men fight with men, and French taxes rob the poor. He works for Lap, a buffalo herder whose past is entangled with Kim's parents, and he makes friends who will lead him to his place in the world.
In the UKNo streaming, rental or purchase options known.
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How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone
  • melancholicstrength 3 of 3
  • bleakstrength 2 of 3
  • earneststrength 2 of 3
  • tensestrength 1 of 3
Pacing
slow-burn, 1 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention
demanding, 4 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes
  • survival
  • coming-of-age
  • politics
  • family
  • trauma
Places
  • countryside
  • wilderness
Era
period
Audience
adult
Form
  • nonlinear
Content intensity
  • Gore mild
  • Language mild
  • Violence mild
  • Sex mild
All scales, 0 to 10
Scales, 0 to 10
ScaleValue0 to 10
Action2
Horror2
Humour1
Realism8
Romance2
Tension4
Darkness7
Complexity6
Emotional weight8

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Where to watch in the UK

No UK streaming, rental or purchase options are known.

Streaming data from JustWatch.TMDB

Details

Genres
drama
Directed by
Minh Nguyen-Vo
Written by
Nam Son, Minh Nguyen-Vo
Starring
Lê Thế Lữ, Kiều Trinh, Nguyễn Hữu Thành, Zan Sram Kra, Van Be Truong, Ánh Hoa, Nguyễn Thị Thắm, Hoang Nhan Vo
Music
Tôn-Thât Tiêt
Runtime
102 min
Country
Vietnam, Germany, France, Belgium
Languages
Vietnamese

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