Posted on 09/19/2002 10:23:35 PM PDT by HAL9000
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Vietnamese officials were meeting Friday to consider whether to punish an actor branded a "national traitor" for starring with Mel Gibson in the Hollywood movie "We Were Soldiers."Authorities in Ho Chi Minh City, where actor Don Duong lives, proposed earlier that he be fined and banned from acting or leaving the country for five years for appearing in the movie, which they said distorted the history and image of Vietnamese soldiers.
Officials from the Ministry of Culture and Information were meeting Friday to consider the proposal, and will submit a recommendation to the ministry for a final decision, ministry Cinematic Department Director Nguyen Phuc Thanh said.
Vietnam's communist government has led a strident campaign against "We Were Soldiers" in the country's state-controlled media.
The movie, not approved for sale in Vietnam but widely available on bootleg DVDs, depicts a bloody three-day battle in November 1965 in Vietnam's Ia Drang valley, the first major clash between the North Vietnamese army and U.S. troops in the Vietnam War.
In the film, the U.S. troops have little idea of what they face and are overrun and suffer heavy casualties. Both sides are portrayed as courageous and self-sacrificing, while their families are shown grieving the deaths of their loved ones.
The movie is based on the book "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young" by the U.S. commander in the battle, retired Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore.
Duong played commander Nguyen Huu An, who led the Vietnamese soldiers to victory.
Duong, one of Vietnam's most popular actors, has appeared in numerous domestic movies about the war. He also played the role of a refugee camp translator in "Green Dragon," a movie directed by Vietnamese American Tony Linh Bui about Vietnamese who fled the country after the end of the war and dreamed of living in the United States.
"Both movies distort the legitimate war history of our people and the humanity of the Vietnamese," army newspaper Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People's Army) said in a front-page article Wednesday.
The newspaper demanded stern punishment for Duong.
"By becoming a propagandist and henchman for 'hostile forces' and tarnishing the Vietnamese soldiers and people, Don Duong has sold his conscience cheaply and become a national traitor," it said.
Duong couldn't be reached for comment, but in an earlier interview with The Associated Press, he said he was surprised at the reaction and has decided not to play any more roles in foreign movies about the Vietnam War.
Vietnamese movies about the war invariably portray Vietnamese soldiers as noble and Americans as cruel murderers.
We killed a lot more than 10%
Your brother must have been a tunnel rat to be hangin' around Cu Chi...not a nice place to be.
How about a trade? We give them Jane Fonda, and we'll take this guy in.
That's absolutely correct........and the Tet Offensive succeeded in this respect brilliantly. The VC were never again a truly effective fighting force. Of course, we paid a heavy price in many ways as well.........especially in "political capital", since the American public had been told how "under control" the situation was in Vietnam. The Tet Offensive destroyed the Pentagon's credibility, and the rest.......as they say.........is history (much to the chagrine of those who served there, no doubt).
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