Kim is 15; his father and step-mother have two buffalo, their lifeline as subsistence rice farmers. During the rainy season, there's no grass and the buffalo are starving. Kim volunteers to take the beasts inland to find food. On this coming-of-age journey, Kim sees men mistreat women, men fight with men, and French taxes rob the poor. He works for Lap, a buffalo herder whose past is entangled with Kim's parents, and he makes friends who will lead him to his place in the world.

"I learn that Chris McIntyre served in Vietnam and that "21 and a Wakeup," set in an Army hospital in the waning days of the war, is based on events that he experienced and heard about." - Roger Ebert

While awaiting the return of her husband from the war to no avail, a woman gradually finds herself charmed by a newly arrived engineer.

Hoping to reconnect with his Vietnamese roots, Dũng, an American engineer, spends his entire annual leave to stay in Saigon. He enlists the help of his close friend Lâm whose playboy and hedonistic lifestyle will steer his homecoming in a very different trajectory.

Thien Tam, a young but weak boy comes home after his treatment at the hospital to find that his cousin-sister, Hai Lam, has gone away from home. Tam decides to go look for her but then finds something horrible behind her missing.