Tony Bui

Bui was born in Vietnam and in 1975 came to the U.S. at the age of two years with his family, as a refugee of the U.S.-Vietnamese war, leaving Vietnam approximately one week before the Fall of Saigon. He was raised in Sunnyvale, California, where his father ran a video store which led to his interest in cinema.[1] He studied film at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.[1]

Bui visited Vietnam several times before making his first short film, the highly successful Yellow Lotus, which also debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to play at festivals around the world.

He has also co-wrote and produced Green Dragon, starring Patrick Swayze and Forest Whitaker, for his older brother Timothy Linh Bui, as well as writing several screenplays for production companies. He is believed to be developing another feature film project. For a brief time he was associated with Lazarus, a film in development at Warner Brothers.

Bui is the brother of Timothy Linh Bui, a film director and producer. The two have worked together on several films. He is also the nephew of the Vietnamese actor Đơn Dương.