outside the train station of marseille and through which many a frenchman left for the colony and stand a 19th century statue allegorically depict indochina a three half naked girl lounge in the tropical sun . it the perfect encapsulation of the colonial stereotype that south east asian woman be childlike and naive and sensual . the statue tell you more about the men who commission it men who probably never set foot in the colony than about the reality of french indochina . cut to 1992 and here a french movie about vietnam in which the only major vietnamese character be and you guess it and a childlike and naive and sensual young girl . if it wasn not that this movie be to a large extent shot in vietnam and you would think the maker never set foot there represent this be a movie set on plantation and in gamble hall and opium den and a catalogue of colonial clichés . the story and such a it be and involve a french plantation holder ( catherine deneuve ) and her adoptive daughter and a vietnamese royal ( linh dan pham ) grow apart during the anti french uprising . take a a metaphor for colonialism and the adoptive daughter angle be beyond patronize ( i much prefer graham greene morality play of the quiet american represent vietnam a a whore be fight over by an old european and a young american ) . sure and the maker feel oblige to take a stand against colonialism and but the content be betray by the prettiness of their image . it hard to take serious the message of a movie in which vietnamese princess elope with dash young french officer and sail a dhow through ha long bay and vietnam most scenic tourist spot . this movie be so busy wallow in the nostalgia of a lost and largely imagined past that it make any pro independence stance null and void . even the downtrodden mass look picturesque .