The Quiet American

Caine well-deserves accolades in this role of a lifetime, portraying the aging and cynical English journalist Thomas Fowler, a long-time correspondent based in 1950s Saigon. He's obsessed with his beautiful young Vietnamese mistress Phuong (Yen) who also becomes a romantic object for brash American Alden Pyle (Fraser). There's something about this do-gooder, who's supposedly on a medical mission, that makes Fowler both suspicious and jealous. Set amidst the communicst insurgence of Ho Chi Minh into French-held Indo-China, which will then lead to American involvement. Based on the novel by Graham Greene.