Heaven & Earth (1993)
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47% of critics liked it
(17 reviews) -
70% of users liked it
(5,347 ratings)
With Heaven and Earth -- cobbled together from two autobiographical reminiscences (When Heaven and Earth Changed Places and Child of War, Woman of Peace by Le Ly Hayslip -- Oliver Stone completes his self-declared "Vietnam Trilogy" (the other films being Platoon and Born On the Fourth of… More With Heaven and Earth -- cobbled together from two autobiographical reminiscences (When Heaven and Earth Changed Places and Child of War, Woman of Peace by Le Ly Hayslip -- Oliver Stone completes his self-declared "Vietnam Trilogy" (the other films being Platoon and Born On the Fourth of July) of films examining the Vietnam War from different perspectives. Heaven and Earth begins in the central Vietnamese village of Ky La during the 1950s. Phung Le Ly (Hiep Thi Le) is an innocent peasant girl, helping her mother (Joan Chen) to tend the rice paddies while being lectured in the ways of life by her father (Haing Ngor). The idyllic peace of the village is disrupted when a jet bomber crosses the skies. Soon the village is decimated as the American-backed South Vietnamese government troops and the Viet Cong engage in brutal warfare in which the victims are the innocent villagers. Le Ly is both tortured and raped. She leaves Ky La for Danang for a life as a prostitute. There she meets the tall and craggy American soldier Steve Butler (Tommy Lee Jones), a kind but lonely man who isn't looking for sex but for someone to settle down with -- as he says, "I want an Oriental wife." They marry, and Steve takes her back to the United States, where her in-laws look at her not as a wife but as a pet. In the harsh glare of 1970s U.S. culture, Le Ly has trouble adjusting to the American way of life. But not as hard a time as her husband, who, after twenty years in Vietnam, discovers he cannot adapt to civilian life. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Directed By
- Oliver Stone
- Genres
- Drama
R,
- In Theaters
- Jun 1, 1994 Wide
- Studio
- Warner Home Video
Critic Reviews
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Janet Maslin, New York Times
Mr. Stone tells this tale vigorously, but he has the wrong cinematic vocabulary for his heroine's essentially passive experience.
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Desson Thomson, Washington Post
Heaven has so many themes, ranging from Buddhist spirituality to feminism, it ends up with none.
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Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
This is the first time [Stone] has tried to place himself inside a woman's imagination, and that he succeeds so well is due partly...to an extraordinary performance by Hiep Thi Le in the leading role.
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James Berardinelli, ReelViews
Heaven and Earth has the epic scope one would expect from a film of this magnitude, but it lacks much of the narrative strength of Stone's first two Vietnamese tales.
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Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
What Oliver Stone has created is his Mrs. Miniver for the Vietnam era.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
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Cast
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Tommy Lee Jones
as Steve Butler
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Joan Chen
as Mama
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Dr. Haing S. Ngor
as Papa
- Hiep Thi Le
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Debbie Reynolds
as Eugenia
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Vivian Wu
as Madame Lien
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Dustin Nguyen
as Sau
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Conchata Ferrell
as Bernice
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Dale Dye
as Larry
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Liem Whatley
as Viet Cong Captain
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Robert John Burke
as G.I. Paul
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Michael Paul Chan
as Interrogator
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Timothy Carhart
as Big Mike
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Tim Guinee
as Young Sergeant
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Marshall Bell
as 3rd Dinner Guest
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Robert Marshall
as Detective
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Annie McEnroe
as 1st Dinner Guest
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Chitra Mojtabai
as Supermarket Check-out Girl
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Marianne Muellerleile
as 2nd Dinner Guest
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Stephen Polk
as G.I. #1
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Brad Rea
as G.I. #3
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Vivien Straus
as Neighbor's Wife
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Tai Thai
as Jimmy (age 20)
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Phil Neilson
as Marine in Helicopter
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Keith Smith
as G.I. #2
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Dave Cooper
as Bald Onlooker
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Tuan Tran
as Rapist
- Billy Hopkins
- Heidi Levitt
- Risa Bramon Garcia
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Mai Le Ho
as Hai
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Irene Ng
as 1st Torture Girl
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Michael Lee
as Ky La Wizard
- Bussaro Sanruck
- Haing S. Ngor
- Khiem Thai
- Lan Nguyen Calderon
- Supak Pititam
- Thuan K. Nguyen
- Thuan Le
