Movie Review of The Owl and the Sparrow (2007)

If you go more deeply into your own spiritual practice, emphasizing wisdom and compassion, you will encounter the suffering of other sentient beings again and again, and you will have the capacity to acknowledge it, respond to it and feel deep compassion rather than apathy or impotence.
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama, “The Little Book of Buddhism”

Thuy a ten year old Vietnamese girl, played by Han Thi Pham, works in her uncle’s blind factory. Her parents are dead and her uncle is critical and demanding. She does not attend school and receives no money for her work. Seeking a better life, she runs away to the city and tries to survive selling postcards and then flowers. Hungry and poor, she meets two kind and lonely people, a stewardess, Miss Lan (Cat Li) and a zoo keeper, Mr. Hai (The Lu Le) both of whom show compassion. But her uncle is determined to find her and bring her back.

Thuy’s situation gives us a glimpse into the life of street children but this movie is one of hope.