Kieu Chinh Movies

Director Robert Luketic adapts Ben Mezrich's best-seller Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions to tell the true-life tale of six genius students who used their brains to beat considerable odds. Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) may be shy, but his wallflower reputation betrays his inner brilliance. As smart as Ben may be, however, if he can't pay his tuition he'll be kicked out of M.I.T. Fortunately, the answer to all of Ben's problems is right there in the cards. Recruited to join a team of extremely gifted students who have used their mastery of numbers to beat the odds at blackjack, Ben procures a fake identity in order to join the casino scammers and their brilliant leader -- eccentric math professor and stats genius Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) -- in some highly profitable weekend excursions to Las Vegas. Counting cards isn't illegal, and by using a complex series of signals, this team has cracked the code. Of course, it doesn't take long for Ben to become seduced by the glamorous Las Vegas lifestyle, and the attention afforded to him by his sexy teammate Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth) finds him pushing his luck to the absolute limits. Laurence Fishburne stars as Cole Williams, the Sin City security chief who catches on to the group and makes it his mission to expose their lucrative blackjack scam. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

In 1975, as the war in Vietnam finally draws to a close, a number of Vietnamese refugees seeking new homes in the United States find themselves housed at the Camp Pendleton Marine base in California, where Sgt. Jim Lance (Patrick Swayze) is put in charge of their care. Lance is a compassionate man who tries to afford the refugees as much dignity and respect as is possible; frustrated by his inability to speak with them directly, Lance strikes up a friendship with Tai (Don Duong), who worked with the U.S. Army as a translator during the war and now wants to settle in America. Tai helps Lance speak with the refugees, and coaches him in conversational Vietnamese. Tai and Lance soon come to realize how much they have in common, and how they are both still coming to terms with the emotional scars inflicted upon them by the war. Tai is looking after his nephew Minh (Trung Nguyen) and niece Anh (Jennifer Tran), who are waiting for their mother to arrive, but Tai is tortured with guilt, convinced he should have given her his seat on the flight to California. Lance, on the other hand, was stationed in America while his brother fought and died in Vietnam, and Lance believes he should have taken his brother's place. Meanwhile, Minh spends his days looking after Anh and wandering the camp; he strikes up a friendship with Addie (Forest Whitaker), a cook at the camp with a passion for art. Together, Addie and Minh try to brighten the refugees' area by creating a large and colorful mural that symbolizes the multicultural America they dream of. Green Dragon was written and directed by Timothy Linh Bui, whose brother Tony Bui helmed the acclaimed drama Three Seasons, which examined life in contemporary Vietnam. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Embittered Vietnam veteran Nick Stratton (Nick Stratton) owns an appareal factory where his underpaid workers, mostly Vietnamese refugees, labor under sweatshop conditions. Monica (Roma Downey) shows up to teach lessons in American citizenship to Nick's long-suffering employees, including a girl named Am-Nhac (Jennifer Paz). The angel's real goal, of course, is to redeem the apparently iredeemable Nick by forcing him to confront a traumatic memory from his wartime past, in which he was dishonorably discharged for trying to do the right thing at the wrong time. Unfortunately, Monica's efforts are unwittingly undermined by fellow angel Andrew (John Dye), whose zeal to expedite Nick's salvation has disastrous--and explosive--consequences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This off-beat urban anthology offers four different views of the mayhem and destruction that came from the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The first vignette "Gold Mountain," directed by Galen Yuen, centers on a struggle between a traditional-minded Chinese storekeeper and his increasingly uncontrollable son, who is assimilating rapidly into American ghetto life. Their relationship explodes as their store is looted during the riot. Alex Munoz's "Caught in the Fever," featuring a screenplay by the late Joe Vasquez, follows the corruption of a basically good Latino couple who get caught up in the riot's hysteria and set aside their values participate in the chaos. In "Empty" an Anglo policeman finds himself in the center of the riot alone and surrounded by angry youths who force him to take desperate measures. The final vignette, "Homecoming Day" centers upon a black man who managed to escape South Central and forge a better life for himself and his wife. The day the verdict for the Rodney King trial was announced, he goes back to the old neighborhood to see his mother, not realizing that the place will soon become a maelstrom of hatred and violence. In making this anthology, the four filmmakers created continuity by having characters from each film occasionally appear in the background of the other films. They also all utilized the same cinematographer, editor and basic crew. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this first episode of a two-part story, Tess (Della Reese) pays a visit to the Greene family, the protagonists of the Touched by an Angel spinoff series Promised Land. She informs Joshua Greene (Austin O'Brien) that God has reserved a special purpose for him, specifically act as the "eyes" for the temporarily blinded Monica during her next assignment. Hitching a ride with one Michael Burns (George Newbern), Joshua and Monica end up in a rundown Denver neighborhood, where Michael's grandfather runs an inner-city mall. Here the travellers befriend lunch-counter owner Mary Harding (Esther Rolle) and her grandchildren Calvin (Sean Nelson) and Chanice (Myriah Darden), and also beauty salon proprietor Queenie (Jenifer Lewis). Unfortunately, the neighborhood is rife with tension over a dangerous band of "taggers" who have covered the walls with gang graffiti--and just before the episode ends, tragedy strikes one of the principal characters. Though the concluding half of this story originally aired as an episode of Promised Land, it is currently included in the Touched by an Angel syndication package. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another of several made-for-TV movies based on the best-selling novels of Danielle Steel, this one stars Jenny Robertson as Paxton Andrews, a sheltered Southern belle who falls for law student Peter Wilson (Steven Eckholdt) on the campus of Berkeley in the late '60s. After Peter is drafted and dies in Vietnam, the grief-stricken Paxton becomes the Saigon-based correspondent for a San Francisco newspaper, determined to use her column "Message from 'Nam" to bring comfort and solace to others whose loved ones are mired in the Southeast Asian quagmire. Before the inevitable slam-bang climax during the fall of Saigon, Paxton has not only grown emotionally and spiritually, but she has also enjoyed tender romantic interludes with a hard-bitten Army captain (Nick Mancuso) and a likeable sergeant (Ted Marcoux). Also featuring such formidable personalities as Rue McClanahan, Billy Dee Williams, and Esther Rolle, Danielle Steel's 'Message From Nam' originally aired October 17, 1993, on NBC. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

From a script by Tom Badal and C. Courtney Joyner comes this film about a man whose wartime experiences continue to affect his life back in the U.S. Robert Ginty, a veteran low-budget actor who specializes in portraying drifters and loners, directs himself as Thomas McCain, an American GI who returns home and tries to wipe out the past by becoming a priest. McCain is haunted by his acts in Vietnam, where he had a baby with a Vietnamese lover but abandoned both of them. When he learns that his daughter has come to the U.S. with her mother, McCain goes to Houston to reconcile his newfound morality with his past and to try to get his daughter back from the notorious drug dealer whom the mother of his child has married. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-cable TV drama, Lt. Jake Robbins (Kris Kristofferson) was presumed to have been killed in action during the Vietnam War. His wife, Sarah (JoBeth Williams) and his son were forced to get on with their lives; however when Jake turns up in Thailand many years later with a Cambodian wife and two children, the two families must struggle to deal with this complication. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, Disney's The Girl Who Spelled Freedom is a made-for-television film about a teen-aged Cambodian refugee who arrives in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1979. As she adjusts to American culture, the girl becomes an excellent speller and, a mere four years after she arrived in the US, she competes in and wins a national spelling bee. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

In this drama, adapted from a W. Somerset Maugham novel, a philandering wife is accused of killing her lover. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Against not only his better judgment but also that of Col. Potter (Harry Morgan), Hawkeye (Alan Alda) falls in love. The object of his affection is an artistocratic Korean woman who is caring for her mother and children all by herself. The role of Kyung Soon is played by Kieu Chinh, who was one of South Vietnam's top actresses and TV personalities before the fall of Saigon in 1975. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set during the Vietnam war before U.S. involvement, this political drama tells the gripping story of an American operative who is sent to Saigon to protect the U.S. ambassador from an unknown assassin's bullet. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide