Vietnam: actor still free, fate being decided
HANOI - Vietnamese actor Don
Duong, branded a "national traitor" for a role
in a movie about the Vietnam War starring
Mel Gibson, has not been jailed but
authorities were considering how he would
be punished, Hanoi said on Thursday.
"The movie 'We Were Soldiers' did not reflect
correctly the truth of history of the just war
by the Vietnamese people, not forming the
image of the soldier of the Vietnamese
People's Army," Foreign Ministry's
spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said.
The movie depicts the battle of Ia Drang in
Vietnam's Central Highlands 1965 in which
men from the 7th Air Cavalry led by Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore, played by Gibson,
triumphed over a more experienced and much larger North Vietnamese force.
Duong played the role of the senior Vietnamese military officer.
Thanh told a regular news briefing that another movie, "Green Dragon" in which Duong
played as the head of a refugee camp, contained many scenes that "distorted the reality"
in Vietnam.
But responding to media reports that Duong has been jailed for those movie roles, Thanh
said: "Actor Don Duong is not arrested, not in jail or barred from traveling as reported."
A senior official at the Department of Cinematography under the Culture and Information
Ministry told Reuters authorities were considering what punishment Duong would get but
had made no final decision.
Duong, 45, lives in southern Ho Chi Minh City and could not be reached for comment.
"He could be punished for going abroad with a wrong purpose, eventually to work in
movies but not to visit relatives as he had stated," she said without elaboration.
Duong has family in the United States and they have begun a letter-writing petition to
Hanoi that have drawn the support of Gibson and others in Hollywood.
"Green Dragon," a 2001 release that starred Patrick Swayze, depicted the life of
Vietnamese refugees in a U.S. camp after the war in Vietnam ended in 1975.
The Ho Chi Minh City authority had proposed that the culture ministry ban Duong for five
years from acting in any movie and ban him from going abroad for five years.
Duong is a popular actor who has starred in scores of well-received Vietnamese movies.
"It is very regrettable that an actor who used to enjoy the popularity in Vietnam who took
part in big movies now has taken part in movies that damage his own image,"
spokeswoman Thanh said.
"That's the most severe punishment to an actor... It will be heavy losses for an actor
when he loses popularity," she said.
Duong also appeared in the 1999 movie "Three Seasons" with Harvey Keitel.
Reuters - October 17, 2002.
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