
A young man who struggles through life by earning some money with his bicycle-taxi in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh city) gets contact to a group of criminals. They introduce him to the mafia-world of drugs and crime.... (Full plot summary below)
Enjoy FREE movies and series with your Prime (USA) subscription or when you start a 30-day free trial!
Links compiled using automated software. Availability of offers subject to change / might be region specific / out of date.
A young man who struggles through life by earning some money with his bicycle-taxi in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh city) gets contact to a group of criminals. They introduce him to the mafia-world of drugs and crime.
Leave your thoughts about Cyclo.
| Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumThere’s no denying that Cyclo is a visionary piece of work, shot through with passion and poetry. |
| EmanuelLevy.ComEmanuel LevyJust as impressive as his feature debut Scent of the Green Papayas, as a poetic study of survival in modern and ravished Vietnam, Cyclo will be compared to De Sica's post- WWII classic Bicycle Thief. |
| Ozus' World Movie ReviewsDennis SchwartzThis powerful film offers Westerners a potent dosage of what life is like in a Third World country, a country most Americans only envision in a depersonalized way. |
| Los Angeles TimesKevin ThomasWith its dazzling camerawork, feverish energy and dark, visceral power, this admirably unsentimental film paints a compelling portrait of moral derailment and salvation in a city in social and spiritual turmoil. |
| Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovCyclo is a rich, gritty, and ultimately distressing feast for the eyes. It's a dark and dirty dream that stays with you long after you leave the theatre. |
| San Francisco ChronicleEdward GuthmannViolent, disjunctive and exhausting, it's a dark fable that illustrates with startling images the strong, seductive pull of evil. |
| San Francisco ExaminerDavid ArmstrongHung skillfully evokes the oppressive congestion, squalor and heat of Ho Chi Minh City. (Amazingly, given the controlling nature of Vietnam's socialist government, the warts-and-all movie was shot on location.) But he is less successful at developing the character of his characters. |
| The IndependentQuentin CurtisAn oblique narrative and shadowy thoughts, in a film that divides itself abruptly between wordlessness and outright poetry, become too fragile to rise above harsher images that overwhelm the viewer. Cyclo never achieves the balance to make such contrasts work as lucidly as they might. |
| Slant MagazineEric HendersonAn extraordinarily imaginative director, Tran fashions Cyclo into a sensualist nightmare. |
| EmpireLouise BrealeyViolent and sometimes shocking, this is nevertheless superbly acted, brilliantly shot piece. |