Như Quỳnh

Như Quỳnh's composed women are not necessarily gentle ones. She is often cast as a mother, an elder sister or a figure of authority, and she gives those roles room for hardship and conflicting feelings. In Cyclo (1995), she plays Madam, the crime-boss employer who draws the young protagonist into extortion and violence. The part makes useful demands on her ability to move from a controlled exterior to something more forceful.

Trần Anh Hùng's film also exposes the limits of what that force can achieve. We were disturbed by its graphic cruelty, and frustrated when the tangled story weakened its characters. Như Quỳnh's change of emphasis matters here: the composure that suits a family drama can also serve a character who has power over somebody else's life. The acting is forceful, but we recommend the film chiefly to those with an appetite for adventurous crime cinema.

Her work was established in Vietnamese cinema long before those international co-productions: Đến hẹn lại lên (1974) gave her an early leading role as Nết. Indochine (1992), in which she played Cô Sao, helped introduce her to a wider audience before Cyclo. The later collaboration with Trần Anh Hùng, The Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000), places her among three Hanoi sisters as the eldest, Sương. That family setting makes good use of the emotional restraint that makes her a persuasive ensemble actor.

Later work has often returned her to mature supporting parts, including Bà Lao in The Third Wife (2019). There is a risk of taking such casting for granted, as though a mother or an older woman required only a reassuring presence. Those parts need conflicting feelings as much as any lead does, and her restraint is a reason to pay attention. Try Cyclo for the harsher end of her work, with fair warning that its storytelling is less assured than its acting.