Henry Golding is stepping out of romantic comedy to star in an upcoming British drama.
The film, Monsoon, features Kit, played by Henry Golding, returning to Ho Chi Minh City to spread his parents’ ashes. But instead of feeling at home, the country is unfamiliar to him.
“I went to where we used to live,” Kit says in the trailer. “I felt like a tourist. I hardly recognize this country anymore.”
In the trailer, Kit shares his emotional discomfort with family members and what appears to be his boyfriend, strolling along Vietnam and speaking about his parents, who never returned to their homeland.
The boyfriend, played by Parker Sawyers, is a Black American who moved to Vietnam, and the British Vietnamese Kit also meets a friend, played by Molly Harris.
The official synopsis reads:
“Monsoon is a rich and poignant reflection on the struggle for identity in a place where the past weighs heavily on the present. Kit (Henry Golding, Crazy Rich Asians) returns to Ho Chi Minh City for the first time since he was six years old when his family fled the country in the aftermath of the Vietnam-American war. Struggling to make sense of himself in a city he’s no longer familiar with, he embarks on a personal journey across the country that opens up the possibility for friendship, love, and happiness.”
Monsoon is written and directed by Cambodian British filmmaker Hong Khaou, and first premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in June 2019, according to Out.
The film will premiere in UK theaters on May 1, 2020, and may move onto distribute internationally, Instinct Magazine reported.
Critics lauded the “touching, thoughtful and gorgeously shot piece of work,” as well as describing the film as “sensitive portrait of cultural displacement” in the trailer.
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