The Sorrow of War is a novel written by Bao Ninh in which he tells a story about a North Vietnamese soldier and how he went about in the war. Kien, the main character in the novel, suffers through the sorrows of war and the hardship of war. A movie that is similar and different to the novel would be Full Metal Jacket. It is a movie based on the Vietnam War and what life was like during the war. Private Joker, the main character in the movie, goes to Vietnam to fight the war alongside the South Vietnamese. The Sorrow of War and Full Metal Jackets are similar and different in many ways.
The novel and the movie are similar because some of the events that occur in both the movie and novel are the same. In the novel, Kien and his commander are sent to the battlefield. While shooting, his commander is hit by a B-52 and his stomach is torn apart. In the movie, Private Joker and his sergeant find themselves in the middle of an NVA attack. The sergeant is hit with a B-52 and his stomach is also torn apart. In both the movie and the novel, there are hookers roaming the street and prostituting themselves. In the novel, the hookers were at coffee house. In the movie, the hookers were roaming the street asking the American soldiers to have sex with them for 15 dollars. .
One of the most similar things in both the novel and the movie would be the women in the war. Private Joker and his platoon are on the battlefield right in the middle of the city were they were attack by a sniper. The sniper killed three of the soldiers. The sniper turns out to be a female North Vietnamese soldier. Kien on the other hand is attacking a building in which him and his comrade's, sacrificing their lives, is shot and killed. Kien was the only one who survived. The author and producer in both the novel and the movie also show many hardships during the Vietnam War. The soldiers had a hard time living in Vietnam because the country's economy is poor.
