Monsoon (2021)

A moving tale, Monsoon follows Kit (Henry Golding) as he returns home to Saigon, Vietnam. After his family fled to England after the Vietnam war when he was six, Kit hasn’t looked back. However, after the loss of both of his parents, Kit heads back to Saigon thirty years later not only to scatter their ashes, but also to begin a journey of self-discovery.

Throughout the film, Kit verbalizes how he barely remembers his homeland. His Vietnamese isn’t as strong as it used to be, as he shifted towards an English lifestyle. After the war, Saigon hoped to distance itself from the past. It wants to move on and provide a completely different experience for residents and tourists. More specifically, Saigon wants to be unrecognizable, which it has achieved since Kit feels out of place, or as he declared, a tourist.

As he travels both Saigon and Hanoi, Kit realizes he doesn’t know much about his birth country. He never asked his parents, and they forbid him from going back. He meets up with his second cousin Lee (David Tran), who recounts memories of their brief childhood together and allows Kit to piece together his history.