American Experience

Critics Consensus

An emotionally wrenching portrayal of a family reunion that doesn't turn out as expected.

79%

TOMATOMETER

Total Count: 76

60%

Audience Score

User Ratings: 217

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Movie Info

As the United States began to withdraw from Vietnam, many Vietnamese women who'd borne children fathered by American servicemen feared for the safety of their offspring, as many Vietcong were extremely prejudiced against people of mixed racial heritage. In 1975, an organization called Operation Babylift was created to help mothers in Vietnam find adoptive parents for their children the United States, and Mai Thi Hiep, one such child, found herself relocated to Tennessee at the age of seven. Mai Thi Hiep was given the new name Heidi Bub, and encouraged by her new mother to turn her back on the life and culture she had left behind. Bub easily assimilated into American life, but by the time she had entered college, she had a severe falling out with her adopted mother and decided to renew contact with Mai Thi Kim, the mother she had left behind. Bub had hoped to find the love and acceptance that her adopted mother was unable to give her, but after traveling to Danang to visit Kim and her family,Bub discovered this would be neither simple or easy to arrange -- Bub soon discovered just how different she and her mother had grown to be, Kim's husband bluntly (though without malice) points out that Heidi was the product of his wife's infidelity while he was fighting in the war, and one of Bub's half-siblings asks what their relatively prosperous American relative intends to do to support the family financially. A provocative look at the unexpected consequences of both war and family, Daughter From Danang is a documentary that follows Heidi Bub's journey to Vietnam, and what she found there. Daughter From Danang was awarded the Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.

Cast

Heidi Bub
as Herself
Mai Thi Kim
as Herself
Tran Tuong Nhu
as Himself

Critic Reviews for American Experience

All Critics (76) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (60) | Rotten (16)

View All Critic Reviews (76)

Audience Reviews for American Experience

  • Oct 02, 2012
    An Amer-Asian woman travels to Vietnam to meet her long-lost mother. Aside from a few forays into a discussion of cultural and racial differences -- the Vietnamese family's request for money and the Tennessee family's racism -- there is no discernible difference between this documentary and an episode of Maury Povich. It has all the melodrama of daytime talk with very little of the thematic sophistication one might expect from film, especially a film that won at Sundance. Also, I found all the characters unlikable. Heidi lacked any characteristic aside from a plastic smile, and the family was all jubilation. And when the Vietnamese family "turned on" Heidi, I failed to sympathize with either party. Overall, Maury is the same but shorter, so watch it instead; just make sure you don't get a paternity episode instead of a reunion episode.
    Jim H Super Reviewer
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