I do not think Viet nam was a Chinese war but a war of independence. Fog of war made that clear it was known to everyone but LBJ's yes men.
One question, "a war of independence" from whom? I believe that Fog of War was supposed to be McNamara's apologia for having involved us in this war which the French could not win but it was supposed that the US weaponry(Dow Chemical,etc.) could do the trick at least as reported by another CIA man unlike the one who will show up at the bottom of this response; for the simple reason that his identity remained hidden when posting at Western European forum of the nytimes.com and is unknown except by nom de plume with origins claimed in North Dakota. If he is real, he was last heard from while "recruiting" to no avail.
His claim was that being a German-speaking American, he could liaison with the Germans of the Foreign Legion, and that he later sent his adopted son to the French Military academy when he took his Vietnamese wife back to Europe for medical treatment. Those were wild days at the nytimes.com before money got tight.
LBJ being from Texas, I would not imagine having been adverse to the Southeast Asian oil shelf becoming "ours" (if we could have won). After all, the Chinese troops were restrained by Chiang Ching from rail-roading into Nam (which is, to the Chinese, their "South" and demanded "independence" from the French, if that is what you meant by a "war of independence"). Chiang Ching was later officially prosecuted for heading a "gang of four" during the period when Chairman Mao was in his dotage.
So let's start with the other Vietnam movies.
I think that I've seen only two of your selections, Cimino's, The Deer Hunter(1978) which is an anti-war movie with,you guessed it(?):
Meryl Streep who thus qualified to bring "star-power" to Lions and Lambs
which has been considered a "Flop" according to imdb.com; but another star in The Deer Hunter was Shirley Stoler ( I am used to seeing her name spelled,Stoller) who previously starred in Lina Wertmuller's (1975) film: Pasquelino Settebellezze/Seven Beauties.
(For which she was nominated by the Academy, as a forerunner of Jane Campion, for the Australian Film Industry, who had made:The Piano,awarded at Cannes, starring Harvey Keitel, Anna Paquin, and Holly Hunter; that followed by Sofia Coppola in 2000something for, Lost in Translation, although she had previously taken a Raspberry for her first acting job in,Godfather 3 (and she likely could not have been worse than Gregory Corso who forgot his lines when bursting into a court-room scene and never regaining his composure at his inability to memorize lines that he himself had not written. His were always Excellent, however; which is how you know when you are hearing or reading a real Poet).
By the way, Redacted, and Rendition were both also named Flops, at imdb.
Then we get to Kovic's story filmed by Oliver Stone: Born on the Fourth of July. You know when dealing with Stone that this is an:Anti-War movie! When I went to see it, this was the last time that I saw Abbott Hoffman alive, on screen that is, since he played Judge Hoffman in this film for a lark. It was on this occasion that I met too young women in the ladies-room, before catching my bus back home; they too had come to see Abbie "once again" in their case because they lived at the "so-called" commune somewhere along the Mercer and Hunterton counties'border where he had died of an overdose much in the same manner as Marilyn Monroe had considerably earlier. Why she died we will never know except that everybody else knew she was susceptible to suicide. Hoffman on the other hand died because he was actively protesting by documenting the adverse effects of putting a power plant on the Delaware River.
I also saw,In the Valley of Elah, re: current war/Iraq (or, have we quite finished?) which I watched on tv because of Tommy Lee Jones role as the father. Other than that, I would say it is an Anti-war film, again. Why? because it represents our troops as being a bunch of misfits who are now warped for life since they are used to committing crimes against humanity.
The film that you did not mention which is my favorite is: Syriana (2005)
written by Robert Baer, whom I heard speak about it on CSPAN. He is a 21-year career veteran of the Directorate of Operations at CIA. It is a complex job of plotting starring George Clooney, Jeffery Wright, Christopher Plummer, and Matt Damon --and somewhere around here I had a link to a commentary on The Green Zone which I seem to have lost and will have to relocate for you. Found it!
Iraq
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1633788/story.jhtml
'Green Zone': The Bourne Insufficiency, By Kurt Loder
Matt Damon on patrol in a muddled war story.
Here is my favorite: Written by Robert Baer(21 year career at Directorate of Operations,CIA)
Pakistan
Syriana(2005) starring George Clooney and a heap of other stars: Jeffrey Wright,Christopher Plummer, and
Matt Damon; I'm sure there are more
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365737/plotsummary
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365737/synopsis
If I manage to get everything else done, I may be allowed to see some bootleg copy of another Clooney, Men Who Stare at Goats, which apparently had a bad review.
