From sharing the screen with Burt Reynolds and Dev Anand to her memorable role in ‘The Joy Luck Club,’ Kieu Chinh has spent nearly 70 years in cinema. Now, at 89, she is returning to Vietnamese film.
Mai no mot loi tam biet, internationally titled Chrysalis, opens in cinemas across Vietnam on September 11, marking Kieu Chinh’s first official return to the Vietnamese screen in 50 years. At 89, she is the last surviving member of a celebrated quartet of leading actresses from pre-1975 Saigon cinema - Thanh Nga, Kim Cuong, Tham Thuy Hang and Kieu Chinh. Her career, spanning nearly seven decades, includes more than 100 film and television roles.
From Asian cinema star to Hollywood
Kieu Chinh in 1956, one year before making her film debut.
Kieu Chinh was born in Hanoi in 1937 and moved to Saigon in the mid-1950s. In 1957, when she was 20, Nguyen Thi Chinh, as she was then known, caught the attention of director Le Dan’s film crew by chance at a party.
That encounter launched her film career. Taking the screen name Kieu Chinh, she made her debut as Nhu Ngoc, a gentle young woman from Hue, opposite Le Quynh in the period drama Hoi chuong Thien Mu. Her first role was warmly received by audiences, and she went on to appear in films including Mua rung, Ngan nam may bay and Doi mat nguoi xua, gradually becoming one of the most prominent faces of southern Vietnamese cinema.
Kieu Chinh as Nhu Ngoc and Le Quynh as Hoai An in Hoi chuong Thien Mu, the period drama that introduced her to Vietnamese audiences.
Her fluency in English gave Kieu Chinh a particular advantage when foreign film crews sought Vietnamese actors, opening the way for a career beyond Vietnam. In 1964, at the Asian Film Festival in Taipei, Taiwan (China), she was chosen to perform the opening dance with American actor William Holden. The same year, she appeared alongside Burt Reynolds in Operation C.I.A., filmed in Thailand.
In 1965, she attended the Asian Film Festival in Japan, traveled to Hollywood for the premiere of Doctor Zhivago and met Adam West and Omar Sharif at Paramount Studios. In 1969, she and Le Quynh attended the Berlin Film Festival in West Germany, where they spoke with French actor Jean Marais about potential collaborations.
In 1970, Kieu Chinh traveled to New Delhi, India, to play Princess Kamar Souria in 20th Century Fox’s The Evil Within. Her casting generated debate in India’s film industry at the time because a Vietnamese actress had been chosen for the leading role.
At the Asian Film Festival in Taipei in 1971, Kieu Chinh was named Most Appealing Actress, an honor that Saigon newspapers at the time described as the equivalent of being crowned “Asian Best Actress.” Her international career also included a period working in Thailand in the mid-1970s.
Kieu Chinh with legendary Indian actor Dev Anand in a scene from The Evil Within.
The role that defined her international career
In 1993, Kieu Chinh played Suyuan in the acclaimed Hollywood film The Joy Luck Club. It became the role for which she is perhaps best remembered internationally, establishing her as one of the memorable Asian female performers in American cinema.
In 1995, the Vietnam Children’s Fund sent her back to Vietnam for the opening of the first school built with funding from the organization. Fox Television documented the trip in Kieu Chinh: A Journey Home, which later won two Emmy Awards.
After The Joy Luck Club, she continued appearing in films including Face, Five Spices and Journey from the Fall. Her performance as Mrs. Liu in Face earned her a Special Acting Award at the Women’s Film Festival in Turin, Italy, in March 2003, in the same category as Shirley MacLaine.
Portraits of Kieu Chinh during the height of her film career.
Her performance as Suyuan also led Entertainment Weekly to rank her 22nd on its list of 50 performers who had made audiences cry the most in cinema history.
In 2021, she published her memoir Kieu Chinh, recounting her journey from Hanoi and Saigon to life abroad and her international film career.
Returning to Vietnamese cinema after 50 years
In late June 2026, Kieu Chinh traveled to Da Nang for the fourth Da Nang Asian Film Festival (DANAFF IV), where the Motion Picture Association presented her with a commemorative honor recognizing her performance as Grandmother Huong in Mai no mot loi tam biet, formerly titled Chiec ken. The film had been introduced by its production team on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival several months earlier.
It was her first return to Vietnam after many years away.
Speaking with VietNamNet, Kieu Chinh said she had lived away from her homeland for more than 50 years, spending most of her professional life overseas. Last year, she returned to Vietnam to film Mai no mot loi tam biet, playing a grandmother.
“After so many years apart, coming back now feels like a reunion,” she said.
Asked which of her more than 100 roles had left the deepest emotional impression, she mentioned The Evil Within, Chiec bong ben duong alongside People’s Artist Kim Cuong and Thanh Duoc, and The Joy Luck Club, among others.
Her grandmother role in her latest film, however, represents to her the Vietnamese woman who devotes her life to her family, sacrificing and loving without reservation.
“It is a role I don’t really have to act. I only need to relive it, to live it truthfully, because throughout my life I have met Vietnamese grandmothers just like her,” she told VietNamNet.
Kieu Chinh at the fourth Da Nang Asian Film Festival (DANAFF IV) in June 2026.
Finding strength in solitude later in life
Kieu Chinh has lived alone in the US for many years, with her children now grown and raising families of their own. She acknowledges having experienced loneliness, but says she has learned to value solitude as a way to better understand herself and her emotions and to find greater strength.
As a young woman, she was passionate about sports, including horseback riding and water skiing. Today, she practices tai chi every day and seeks to live with a sense of inner peace, avoiding anger and extremes — an outlook she likens to Buddhist philosophy.
For Kieu Chinh, age is merely a number, and cinema continues to occupy much of her daily life.
Speaking about her contemporaries, she expresses affection as well as sadness that many friends from her generation have died, including actress Tham Thuy Hang and director Hoang Vinh Loc, while others now live in nursing homes or have experienced cognitive decline.
At 89, actress Kieu Chinh remains healthy and active. Photo: Kiet Huynh
For her, remaining healthy at this age, retaining her memory and still being able to travel and work are the greatest rewards. Kieu Chinh says the only award that truly matters comes from the love of audiences, rather than any jury or organization.
In the US, one person she considers family is actress Tippi Hedren, star of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. When Kieu Chinh first arrived in America, Hedren welcomed her with open arms and treated her as part of the family.
Although many Vietnamese audiences regard her as an icon and hope she will return to live in Vietnam, Kieu Chinh says her children and grandchildren have established their families in the US. As a mother and grandmother, her heart remains closely tied to wherever her family lives.
Whenever she travels far from home to work on a film, one of her grandchildren often accompanies her, including on previous trips to Australia and Thailand. On her latest visit to Vietnam, her grandchild also stayed with her for several days before returning to the US.
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