Buffalo Boy

Kim is a boy of fifteen. He lives in the Vietnamese countryside. He is with his father and his stepmother. The family lives by growing rice. They have two buffalo. The animals are their lifeline. When the rainy season comes the grass goes under water. The animals begin to starve. Kim offers to take the buffalo inland. A long journey begins that way. What he sees on the road changes him. Men treat women badly. Men fight with other men. The taxes of the French administration press harder on the poor. Kim works for a buffalo herder called Lap. Lê Thế Lữ and Kiều Trinh take the leads in Minh Nguyen-Vo’s Vietnamese, German, French and Belgian coproduction of 2004.