Set in 1952 in Saigon, Vietnam, toward the end of the French war against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945-1954), on one level The Quiet American is a love story about the triangle that develops between Thomas Fowler, a British journalist in his fifties; a young American idealist, supposedly an aid worker, named Alden Pyle; and Phuong, a Vietnamese woman. On another level it is also about the growing American involvement that led to the full-scale American war in Vietnam.
Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine), who narrates the story, is involved in the war only as a reporter, an unengaged observer, apart from one crucial event. Pyle (Brendan Fraser), who represents America and its policies in Vietnam, is a CIA operative sent to steer the war according to Americaâs interests, and is passionately devoted to the ideas of York Harding, an American foreign policy theorist who said that what Vietnam needed was a "third force" to take the place of both the colonialists and the Vietnamese rebels and restore order. This supposedly anti-colonialist and anti-communist force was plainly meant to be America, and so Pyle sets about creating a "Third Force" against the Viet Minh by using a Vietnamese splinter group headed by corrupt militia leader General ThÃ© (based on the actual Trinh Minh The). His arming of ThÃ©'s militia with American weaponry leads to a series of terrorist bombings in Saigon. These bombings, dishonestly blamed on the Communists in order to further American outrage, kill a number of innocent people, including women and children.
Meanwhile, Pyle has stolen Fowler's Vietnamese mistress Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen), promising her marriage and security. When Fowler finds out about Pyle's involvement in the bombings, he takes one definitive action to seal all of their fates. He indirectly agrees to let his assistant, Hinh (Tzi Ma), and his Communist cohorts confront Pyle; when Pyle tries to flee, Hinh fatally stabs him. Phuong subsequently returns to Fowler, and while the local French police commander (Rade Å erbedÅ¾ija) suspects Fowler's role in Pyle's murder, he has no evidence and does not pursue the matter.
What city was hit with a series of terrorist bombings?
Saigon