Kieu Chinh

Acting

Kieu Chinh

Born 1937-07-03 · Hanoi, Vietnam

Kieu Chinh (born September 3rd, 1937) is a Vietnamese-American actress, producer, humanitarian, lecturer and philanthropist. One of the most prominent film stars in South Vietnam during the 60s and 70s, she immigrated to America after 1975 and eventually settled in California where she resumed acting with the help of Tippi Hedron; her first credit in America was as Hawkeye’s South Korean love interest in the TV show M*A*S*H. Subsequently, Kieu Chinh appeared in 45 feature films and television shows, among them the TV movies The Children of An Lac (1980), The Letter (1982) and The Girl Who Spelled Freedom (1986), and films like Hamburger Hill (1987), Gleaming the Cube (1988), Riot (1997) and Catfish in Black Bean Sauce (1999). She also landed a recurring role on ABC’s Vietnam war series China Beach from 1989 to 1991 and the Fox TV show 21 in 2008. But her best-known role is that of Suyuan Woo in Wayne Wang’s The Joy Luck Club in 1993, a film about the relationship between Chinese immigrant mothers and their Chinese-American mothers. Amongst the accolades that Chinh has received in her six-decade career are the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Vietnamese International Film Festival in 2003, the Special Acting Award at the Women’s Film Festival in Turin in 2003, and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the San Diego Asian Film Festival and the San Francisco Film Fest in 2006 and 2015, respectively. In 2009, Chinh was honored as the Woman of the Year for her work in film and community service by California Representative Lou Correa.

Acting credits

21 poster
6.7

Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent student at M.I.T. who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to Harvard School of Medicine to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot afford the $300,000 tuition as he comes from a poor, working-class background. But one evening, Ben is introduced by his unorthodox math professor to a small but secretive club of five students, Jill, Choi, Kianna, and Fisher, who are being trained by Professor Rosa to count cards at blackjack.

21

2008

City of Angels poster
6.8

When a guardian angel – who invisibly watches over the citizens of Los Angeles – becomes captivated by a strong-willed heart surgeon, he ponders trading in his pure, otherworldly existence for a mortal life with his beloved. The couple embarks on a tender but forbidden romance spanning heaven and Earth.

City of Angels

1998

Hamburger Hill poster
6.6

The men of Bravo Company are facing a battle that's all uphill… up Hamburger Hill. Fourteen war-weary soldiers are battling for a mud-covered mound of earth so named because it chews up soldiers like chopped meat. They are fighting for their country, their fellow soldiers and their lives. War is hell, but this is worse. Hamburger Hill tells it the way it was, the way it really was. It's a raw, gritty and totally unrelenting dramatic depiction of one of the fiercest battles of America's bloodiest war. This happened. Hamburger Hill - war at its worst, men at their best.

Hamburger Hill

1987

The Joy Luck Club poster
7.2

Through a series of flashbacks, four Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China explore their pasts.

The Joy Luck Club

1993

Chrysalis poster
NR

In war-torn 1970s Vietnam, a resourceful young boy navigates his place in a chaotic world, guided by his grandmother’s wisdom while haunted by memories of his fractured family.

Chrysalis

2026

Control Freak poster
5.6

A motivational speaker, plagued by an uncontrollable itch on her head, becomes infected with a parasitic demon from her homeland.

Control Freak

2025

Hollow poster
7.5

A young girl falls into a river and drowns. When her body is found in a remote village along the river, her uncle arrives to claim her body, only to find that she is very much alive. But when she returns to her family, unexplainable occurrences lead them to believe she is possessed.

Hollow

2014

Gleaming the Cube poster
6.0

An Orange County teenager's carefree life of ditching class and skateboarding abandoned pools comes to a screeching halt when someone close to him dies. The cops rule the death a suicide, but the bereaved skater believes he was murdered. It's up to him to solve the case, with a skateboard.

Gleaming the Cube

1989

The Evil Within poster
9.0

Interpol follows a fat man from Tokyo to Hong Kong to Manila as he takes care of business for an opium empire.

The Evil Within

1970

Love Storm poster
NR

A law student and a navy officer fosters a beautiful love, but soon get separated by war.

Love Storm

1972

Operation C.I.A. poster
6.0

A young CIA agent is assigned to Saigon to stop a planned political assassination.

Operation C.I.A.

1965

The Eyes I Used to Know poster
NR

A doctor is distraught to find out the newly-admitted patient in his shift is the daughter of his childhood sweetheart.

The Eyes I Used to Know

1964

What's Cooking? poster
5.5

Four families of different ethnicities prepare for a potentially explosive Thanksgiving dinner.

What's Cooking?

2000

Fly Away Home poster
6.0

Ambitious pilot to a prospective series revolving around a combat cameraman in Vietnam. Carl Danton is in Saigon on assignment at the start of the 1968 Tet offensive with a cynical boss in the local bureau chief. His love interest is a Vietnamese doctor whose brother happens to be a leader in the Viet Cong and whose influential parents are involved in high-level corruption.

Fly Away Home

1981

Green Dragon poster
6.2

A tale about Vietnamese refugees sent to an orientation camp on the Camp Pendleton Marine Base in California, 'Green Dragon' focuses on a young boy and his sister. Set in 1975, the film chronicles the stories told to the two children by other refugees in the camp and of Tai Tran, who dares to introduce himself to Sergeant Jim Lance. In developing a relationship with Lance, Tran is able to improve

Green Dragon

2001

Face poster
5.3

Genie, a Chinese-American teenager, develops feelings for a charming African-American DJ, but her grandmother forbids their romance forcing Genie to choose between family and love.

Face

2002

Warrior, Who Are You poster
NR

A beautiful reporter goes to the front line to find a soldier with whom she fell in love through correspondences.

Warrior, Who Are You

1971

No artwork available
NR

Fact-based story set in Saigon on April, 1975, shortly after U.S. combat troops have withdrawn, and immediately before Communist forces overrun the city. American citizens try to help South Vietnamese refugees escape on the last commercial flight that will be permitted to leave the city.

Last Flight Out

1990

The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer poster
6.4

After two attempts to kidnap a little girl Mike Hammer is hired to protect her.

The Return of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer

1986

The Letter poster
4.7

The wife of a Malaysian planter kills an employee of her husband one night, but her motive begins to appear not entirely truthful.

The Letter

1982

Trade of Innocents poster
5.2

In the back streets of a tourist town in present-day Southeast Asia, we find a filthy cinder block room; a bed with soiled sheets; a little girl waits for the next man. Alex, a human trafficking investigator, plays the role of her next customer as he negotiates with the pimp for the use of the child. Claire, Alex's wife, is caught up in the flow of her new life in Southeast Asia and her role as a volunteer in an aftercare shelter for rescued girls where lives of local neighborhood girl's freedoms and dignity are threatened.

Trade of Innocents

2012

Tempted poster
6.0

The strain of juggling her responsibilities as wife, mother, and successful paralegal have worn Emma Burke out. Thus it is that Emma welcomes the opportunity to briefly take leave of her Boston home and head for sunny Hawaii. It is not, however, a pleasure trip: Having promised to honor the dying wishes of her Hawaiian-born surrogate mother. Leaving her husband, Mike, behind to care for their two children, Emma arrives in Hawaii for the first time since childhood, where she is reunited with her childhood friend Kala, the handsome son of her late surrogate parent.

Tempted

2003

Cocaine: One Man's Seduction poster
6.9

A 47-year-old real estate salesman gets trapped in the insidious web of cocaine addiction.

Cocaine: One Man's Seduction

1983

Pearls of the Far East poster
NR

Seven stories about Vietnamese women spanning different generations, exploring their inner lives and forbidden loves.

Pearls of the Far East

2012

Behind the camera