Don Duong, a 45-year-old actor once considered Vietnam's shining star, has been branded "a national traitor" in his native country. The Vietnamese government has seized his passport and is threatening to throw the screen veteran in jail and ban him from acting. His crime: co-starring in "We Were Soldiers" with Mel Gibson and the drama "Green Dragon" with Patrick Swayze and Forest Whitaker, films that the Vietnamese government has condemned.
His plight, which first surfaced in media reports in Vietnam earlier this month, is drawing an unusual and impassioned response from Hollywood's creative community. Gibson, Swayze and Whitaker are speaking out on his behalf and are taking part in a letter-writing campaign to the State Department with others including filmmaker Randall Wallace, Harvey Keitel and Ken Brecher, the executive director of the Sundance Institute.
"We Were Soldiers" and "Green Dragon," both released earlier this year, only recently came to the Vietnamese government's attention when they became available on the black market there.
