I've read only 20 comments so far, and it was surprising to learn that some viewers (namely 'gregory.messine' and 'RBarse', both of US of A ) think it's set in Vietnam. Come on lads, I've heard that education in America is not great but I didn't expect it to be so bad. Have you ever opened an atlas. Maybe the sound in your theater didn't work or sth. THIS FILM IS ABOUT A WAR IN CAMBODIA. Cambodia is a neighbour of Vietnam. It's set in 1973-79, just after the Vietnam War!!!!!

Anyway, back to movie. It's brilliant, not too sentimental, not too cold. The acting is simply marvellous (to be honest I didn't know any of the actors except for Malkovich), cinematography is a touch of genius. Some people complained about the score. Well I can agree, that the lyrics of "Imagine" in the context sound like a Khmer Rouge anthem, but the rest is beautiful (Oldfield did a good job).The scene when Schanberg watches some TV programme about the Cambodian War while listening to Puccini's opera is so moving, just like the sight of thousands of Cambodians being "evacuated" by the Khmer out of Phnom Pehn.

9/10

I don't think even this picture can accurately convey the horror of the Khmer Rouge and their policy of Cambodian genocide during the era of the mid-Seventies. It was a terrible time for that country with estimates upward of three million Cambodians massacred by the Pol Pot regime, and all because of an extreme combination of Marxism, Khmer nationalism and xenophobia. When Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor) stumbled onto the 'Killing Fields' of the film's title while attempting to escape the barbarism of his captors, one can only look on in fascination at an impossibly grotesque landscape. With a more than obvious slant regarding the Khmer Rouge as a by-product of American bombing in Cambodia, one might balance that view with a more careful reading of history, but even so, historians still fall on both sides of the matter. In any case, Cambodia was one of the dominoes that fell during this period with the help of the North Vietnamese Army during the early Seventies.

Haing S. Ngor was a fledgling actor when he appeared in this film as Cambodian journalist Dith Pran but one wouldn't know it. The picture and story becomes his following the evacuation of Phnom Penh and the victory of the Khmer Rouge rebels. One can't imagine what emotions and hardships the real Dith Pran must have undergone after the American contingent left. Surviving in turn by drinking cattle blood and relentlessly pursuing any possible means of escape, his story is one for the ages regarding one man's quest for freedom and dignity. There also comes a moment in the film when while viewing today, there's the added poignancy of observing the Twin Towers looming above a New York City landscape when Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) returns home from his Cambodian assignment.

To my mind, I don't know of any other film that touches on the Cambodian War and it's attendant horror the way this one does. It was a time when, as Dith Pran so accurately stated at one point - "The enemy is inside us. No one can be trusted." With all that, there's only one question I have about the making of the film and choice of scenic backdrops for much of the action, and that is, just how many times do you think it was necessary to be subjected to all that product placement by Coca-Cola?

Even now this is really the only thing that any Western viewer knows about Cambodia and the horrors that befell that country. Some great filming locations and performances round out the harrowing tale that doesn't shy away from the reality of what took place when the Khmer Rouge rose to power. Chilling stuff.