Boat People (Blu-ray)

One of the preeminent works of the Hong Kong New Wave, Boat People is a shattering look at the circumstances that drove hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees to flee their homeland in the wake of the Vietnam War, told through images of haunting, unforgettable power.

Three years after the Communist takeover, a Japanese photojournalist (Passion’s George Lam) travels to Vietnam to document the country’s seemingly triumphant rebirth. When he befriends a teenage girl (Silent Love’s Season Ma) and her destitute family, however, he begins to discover what the government doesn’t want him to see: the brutal, often shocking reality of life in a country where political repression and poverty have forced many to resort to desperate measures in order to survive.

Transcending polemic, renowned director Ann Hui (A Simple Life) takes a deeply humanistic approach to a harrowing and urgent subject with searing contemporary resonance.

• New, restored 4K digital transfer, approved by director Ann Hui, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New conversation between Hui and filmmaker Stanley Kwan, who was the movie’s assistant director
• Keep Rolling, a 2020 documentary about Hui made by Man Lim-chung, Hui’s long time production designer and art director
• As Time Goes By, a 1997 documentary and self-portrait by Hui, produced by Peggy Chiao
• Press conference from the 1983 Cannes International Film Festival
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: Essays by film critic Justin Chang and scholar Vinh Nguyen