Born in Vietnam and raised in France from age 12, Tran Anh Hung made an indelible debut as a filmmaker in 1993 with "The Scent Of Green Papaya." A delicate, sensual film, where the patter of rain on garden leaves or the rustle of wind on mosquito netting was as prominent as its story of a servant girl in 1950s Saigon, "Green Papaya" put Tran on the art-cinema map in a big way, including a Camera d'Or award at Cannes.
His followup, "Cyclo" (1995), took the Gran Prix at Venice, and confirmed Tran's talent. While as richly textured as his first film, "Cyclo" saw Tran moving into darker terrain, following a rickshaw driver in Hi Chi Minh City who falls in with a gang, and his drug-addicted sister, prostituted by the brooding gangster (Tony Leung) who loves her. Tran's third film, "Vertical Ray of the Sun" (2000), was a languorous look at three sisters in present-day Hanoi, with a poetic style that harkened back to "Green Papaya."
Tran reverts to the dark side with his latest, "I Come With The Rain." It's the first film he's made that's not set in Vietnam — it's a Hong Kong-based serial killer/gangster/religious allegory flick — and also the first he's made with stars, in this case, three of cinema's most beautiful boys: South Korea's Byung Hun Lee ("JSA"), American Josh Hartnett ("Sin City") and Japan's own Takuya Kimura of SMAP fame. The film wrapped some time ago, but Japan — notably — is the only market where it's been slated for release so far.