Bạch Diệp

A government minister from Hanoi has a car accident on the way to a wedding in a remote village. The county hospital does not have the authority to operate on a minister. The county commissioner would like the operation done in the county for the prestige it would bring, but will not authorize it without the approval of the whole county committee. The hospital director has filled his quota, so does not want to take the risk of an operation. Since a telephone call to Hanoi has to be booked two days in advance, the minister's wife cannot be contacted, nor can a helicopter be arranged to move the minister to Hanoi.

Vietnam, 1954. An American reporter finds himself in the middle of the battle of Điện Biên Phủ, between the French army and the Vietminh.

At a maternity ward in South Vietnam, a midwife adopts three orphaned children after their mothers, undercover Communist spies, go missing or die in action.

Discharged from the Army after losing an arm in the battlefield, Lê Vân returns home. He seeks to help rebuild it, but realises that a life spent fighting has made him disconnected from the villagers and their ideas.

The young & poor struggle to get by in the big city.