This article considers the representation of war in Vietnamese cinema by engaging in a gendered exploration of the legacy of war. By taking gender as an analytical category and cinema as a form of representation, the article examines the largely unexplored issue of the impact of war on female identity in Vietnam. Through the discussion of two recent Vietnamese films, Dòi cát (Sandy Lives) and Bên không chông (Wharf of Widows), the article draws attention to the contradiction between wartime empowerment and post-war disempowerment of women in Vietnam. It argues that, while representation of the de-feminized woman/soldier received much imaginative attention because it fitted well with state-sanctioned interpretations of the war as a collective patriotic sacrifice, the representation of the impact on female identity, on the other hand, was given little consideration since it conflicted with traditional gender configurations in Vietnamese society.
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