Tran Van Lich

A young Vietnamese boy's life is thrown into turmoil by the war raging in his country. The ten year old remains with his mother and baby sister as his father goes off to fight for the Viet Cong. During his father's absence, his mother dies from overwork and the inability to find proper medical care for her illness. He cares for his baby sister and struggles to earn a living by shining shoes and doing other odd jobs before his father returns. Both an American soldier and a Viet Cong regular are shown defending their country's political agenda. Also shown are guerilla tactics and bombings in this feature directed by veteran combat photographer Raoul Coutard.

Orphaned at a young age and later abandoned by her godfather, Vân grows up in the care of kind-hearted nuns at a convent on the outskirts of Saigon. With the help of Mother Superior, the young woman leaves the convent upon adulthood and finds work as a governess for the estate of a wealthy industrialist where she again encounters a series of miseries and torments that have once plagued her childhood.