Boat People (film) - Controversies

Controversies

Because the film was produced with the full cooperation of the government of the People's Republic of China, a government that had recently fought a war with Vietnam, many see it as anti-Vietnam propaganda despite Hui's protestations. The New York Times wrote that the film's harsh view of life in communist Vietnam was not unexpected, given the PRC government's enmity to the Vietnamese. Hui emphasized her decision to depict the suffering of Vietnamese refugees based on extensive interviews she conducted in Hong Kong. She insisted that the PRC government never requested that she change the film's content to propagandize against Vietnam, and that they only told her that "the script had to be as factually accurate as possible." She denied that the situation in Vietnam was grossly exaggerated in the film, such as the scene of the boat being attacked by the Coast Guard - she was inspired by news reports of a guard ship creating whirlpools to sink a boat carrying boat people.

At the Cannes Film Festival, some left-wing sympathizers protested against the film's inclusion, and it was dropped from the main competition. This was reportedly done at the behest of the French government, seeking to solidify its relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

In the Republic of China (Taiwan), the film, along with all of Hui's other work, was banned because it was filmed on Hainan, an island in the People's Republic of China.