The Killing Fields | Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor

The Killing Fields | Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor | The Khmer Rouge

DVDs:

The Killing Fields

	The Killing Fields Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor Warner Home Video, 2001 average customer review:based on 92 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This harrowing but rewarding 1984 drama concerns the real-life relationship between New York Times reporter Sidney Schanberg and his Cambodian assistant Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor), the latter left at the mercy of the Khmer Rouge after Schanberg--who chose to stay after American evacuation but was booted out--failed to get him safe passage. Filmmaker Roland Joffé, previously a documentarist, made his feature debut with this account of Dith's rocky survival in the ensuing madness of the Khmer Rouge's genocidal campaign. The script spends some time with Schanberg's feelings of guilt after the fact, but most of the movie is a shattering re-creation of hell on Earth. The late Haing S. Ngor--a real-life doctor who had never acted before and who lived through the events depicted by Joffé--is outstanding, and he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Oscars also went to cinematographer Chris Menges and editor Jim Clark. --Tom Keogh

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Chilling

At the time of release this was a shocker. Not many realised what genocide was. How this could go on without intervention by the wider world was disturbing. With the passage of time, and similar atrocities almost every day, it seems we have become sensitised. Worth viewing to remind us to be alert.

The Khmer Rouge

A very good film, The Killing Fields, sheds light on the atrocities committed by the communist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia during their reign of terror in the 1970's.
The film follows Dith Pran as he is left behind by his employer, an American reporter, only to be captured by the Khmer Rouge and subsequently experience what amounts to living a nightmare.
Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, and the rest of the cast, have carried out their performances well, nevertheless one cannot help but feel disdain for Sidney Schanberg (and by extension Sam Waterston) for preventing his assistant from reaching shelter when he could.
The acting, the setting, the plot, and the dialogues are all good though the movie could have done much more to show the Communists' sheer brutality. Moreover, there were quite a few dialogues not translated that left us in the dark.
In short, The Killing Fields is a movie definitely worth watching as it will surely provide good insight on one of the most infamous regimes of the twentieth century.

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DVD Jacket for The Killing Fields

While the DVD itself is an excellent film - the DVD Jacket is of extremely poor quality - not what I expected at all.

It looks like a photocopy using very thin paper - not what one would purchase new from a store.

A real disappointment

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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