Nguyen Thi My Chau

A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.

Jeanne, Achille, and their family belong to the middle class. They have their own house. Their marriage has not always gone smoothly, but they both make up for it. Then they both lose their jobs, and the incredible happens: the house is sold and they become homeless.

Restaurant owner Tang the 11th, learning his older brother, Tang the First is ill, returns to the his remote native village, long plagued by leprosy. Superstition holds that a cure can be obtained when a family of five sons and five daughters makes possible the death of a fish from the Lake of Heaven, since the leprosy remedy is in the flesh of this fish. It just so happens that Tang the 11th has five sons, four daughters, and a pregnant wife.

A young man tries his way in boxing, supported by a coach. He meets a girl, falls in love and she becomes pregnant.