The Netflix film is adapted from a poignant memoir depicting a 20th century tragedy
Audiences have praised a deeply moving historical film based on harrowing real-life events. This comes after others have lauded a TV series described as Netflix’s “best”, a period crime drama hailed a “masterpiece” and audiences have started watching a classic murder mystery series.
Netflix‘s First They Killed My Father came out in 2017 and told the story of a girl caught up in the 1970s Cambodian genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge led by dictator Pol Pot. The movie starts in 1975 with five-year-old Loung Ung (played by Sreymoch Sareum), who is the daughter of a high-ranking officer in the army, and her family fleeing from the approaching Khmer Rouge as they take the capital Phnom Penh.
Over time, Loung becomes a child soldier for the communist regime and is coerced to fight the neighbouring Vietnamese forces, while her siblings end up in labour camps. The story offers a harrowing insight into the tragic human cost of rhetoric with innocent civilians dragged into the conflict.
Oscar winner Angelina Jolie directed the movie, which was adapted from the 2007 memoir First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung. The author and Jolie wrote the script together. First They Killed My Father currently holds an 88 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 81 percent on the Popcornmeter, while on IMDb it holds a 7.2/10 raring.
Audiences have heaped praise on the historical film on IMDb as one person posted in their 10/10 review: “Exquisite cinematography, phenomenal performances, and a magnificent account of modern day genocide.” The reviewer concluded: “The images stay with you long after the film concludes, and you’re left with an indelible memory of atrocities that are scarcely known. As well as an understanding of how human beings can transcend staggering circumstances. Must see!”
A 9/10 review read: “Words are difficult to truly justify how painful it is to watch.” The reviewer said the film was “enthralling and “amazing”, going on to end their review by declaring it was a “classic” and a “timely reminder” that children of war were the “biggest victims” in conflict zones.
A third reviewer wrote in their 9/10 review: “’First They Killed My Father’ is an excellent rendition of the individual’s struggle throughout the early Khmer Rouge occupation in 1970s Cambodia.”
They elaborated: “The film accurately portrays how Cambodians struggled under the regime, taking a more intimate perspective: a scale of about the size of a family or individual.”
Jolie previously said she wanted to direct the movie after stumbling across Ung’s book while working on the first Tomb Raider movie in 2001, where she played Lara Croft.
The memoir stuck with her and she would later meet and form a lifelong bond with writer Ung.
The Girl, Interrupted star shot the film over 50 days in Siem Reap and Battambang in late November 2015, according to Screen Daily.
Her eldest adopted son Maddox, who was born in Cambodia, also came along for filming.
Jolie said he was able to learn the history of his country and what his birth parents “most likely went through”.
She went on to tell the outlet: “I made it for Cambodia. I made it as a kind of thank you, a love letter. There hadn’t been a story on this scale that would reach people in their language, with them being the hero.”
Jolie had previously directed Bosnian war film In the Land of Blood and Honey, By the Sea and the remarkable true story of Olympian Louis Zamperini in Unbroken.
First They Killed My Father is streaming on Netflix now
