Sài Gòn Yo ( Saigon Electric) 2011

Mai, a ribbon dancer from the countryside arrives in Saigon and befriends Kim, a street dancer. A promise of a better life leads their dance crew to the big competition, but a romance with a rich kid threatens to derail Kim s plans. It is fairly unusual to see contemporary urban Vietnamese movies that are commercial and not arthouse social realism. This is a youth love story cum dance film and it is enjoyably upbeat. The young cast are attractive especially two female leads who represent the various aspects of a rapidlymodernizing Vietnam. The story line with the evil developers threatening the youth club is a little underdeveloped but it doesn t matter too much. The film is still good to look at. The Ho Chi Minh City locations are well used. An extra point of interest is to see how the Vietnamese kids have taken up hiphop, break dancing (now the ubiquitous vector of a globalised youth culture) and produced an authentic Asian take on it. Not a major film but refreshing and watchable in its way.