In this smart, deeply felt drama, a
British Vietnamese man returns to the old country to make sense of his family history
![Monsoon review – sweet times and scented tea in Saigon](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/65fd2bfff7184c69606e715f169eb3cae31c0ac9/0_400_6000_3600/master/6000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctcmV2aWV3LTQucG5n&enable=upscale&s=a68043c970c441d45835da3f148b89e9)
The rains only come at the end of this film, but there is no drenching emotional release to go with them; the weather is more complicated. Cambodian-British film-maker Hong Khaou, who directed the gentle tale of love and loss Lilting, has created a thoughtful, deeply felt movie of great sweetness, unfolding at an unhurried pace. It is about a homecoming that isn’t quite a homecoming, a reckoning with something not exactly there, an attempted reconciliation with people and places that can’t really be negotiated with.
Related: Henry Golding: 'Moving from
Malaysia to Surrey was a slap in the face'