| In the Book |
In the Movie |
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The book is set in the present day 1992. Nguyen Ngoc Minh is 49 years old. |
The film is set in the present day 2017. Ngoc Minh Quan 61 years old.
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Liam Hennessy is a lawyer and advisor to the Sinn Fein.
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Liam Hennessy is the Northern Ireland deputy First Minister.
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Nguyen Ngoc Minh meets with Ian Wood and ask for information. He offers Wood 11,000 pounds for information. Wood refuses the money and says he will give him contact information to the
Sinn Fein. Nguyen Ngoc Minh also meets with his Member of Parliment and Commander Richard Bromley to ask for names and why IRA members are not arrested and tortured for information, both refuse to help but are sympathetic
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Quan Ngoc Minh pesters Commander Richard Bromley about catching the bombers. He offers him 20,000 pounds for the names of the bombers. Bromley refuses the money and tells him to be patient.
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Nguyen Ngoc Minh is Vietnamese. He was a loyal soldier for the NVA then went to South Vietnam after the VC murdered his father. He was trained by US Special Forces, but was already very skilled at ambushes and traps. He lost two daughters to Thai pirates when escaping Vietnam after the fall in 1975. His third daughter was born while he was a prisoner in North Vietnam.
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Quan Ngoc Minh worked for the Americans after the war. Quan's wife died giving birth to Fan. He lost his other daughter to Thai pirates while escaping Vietnam.
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Nguyen Ngoc Minh Sells his restaurant and apartment to a male friend named Pham for 30,000 pounds.
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Quan Ngoc Minh turns his restaurant over to a female employee named Lam. He gathers supplies and leaves. |
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Hennessy's men find the B&B where Nguyen Ngoc Minh was living, but he has already left. They find some of his bomb making supplies in a dumpster and figure he had enough to make three or four bombs.
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Hennessy's men track Quan Ngoc Minh to a B&B where he is making explosives. They are instructed to simply drive him out of town. Quan fights the goons and escapes, but loses his some of his bomb making supplies.
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Hennessy is not involved in any government negotiations as he is merely a lawyer and not a Minister.
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Hennessy genuinely does not know who is planting the bombs, but he is using the bombings as leverage for IRA pardons from the British government. |
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This does not happen. Cells phones were uncommon in 1992. Maggie is not associated with Hennessy in any way.
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Quan Ngoc Minh tails Hennessy to a bar and sees him with Maggie (his mistress). Quan takes a cell phone photo of him kissing Maggie, sends it to him and demands names again.
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Nguyen Ngoc Minh evades the men tracking him after blowing up the car He injures one man and takes his Browning pistol. He is not shot.
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After one of Hennessy's cars is blown up, four his men head into the woods to the likely place Quan Ngoc Minh is hiding. Quan ambushes and takes three of them all out without killing them. Quan is shot and gets a flesh wound in the shoulder which he later cauterizes with a hot knife.
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A secretary allows Ian Wood to examine Nguyen Ngoc Minh's file at the Home office which revealed details about losing his daughters and time spent in a re-education camp.
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Hennessy received a partially redacted report on Quan Ngoc Minh which reveals he was trained by US Special Forces.
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Nguyen Ngoc Minh set off a fire bomb in Hennessy's barn as a distraction, enters the house while they are fighting the fire, kills the dog with his knife to keep her from barking then confronts Hennessy after he enters the house. Hennessy tells Nguyen Ngoc Minh he set a trap for the bombers by changing the code word they use. Nguyen Ngoc Minh says he will be back in three days for the names.
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Quan Ngoc Minh drugs Hennessy's dog then attacks him in his office at the farm and asks for names again. Hennessy still does not know. Hennessy tells Quan he is like him, Quan beats him for it. Hennessy tells Quan he set a trap for the bombers by changing the code word they use. Quan gives him one day to give him names. |
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The bombing campaign in the book is more extensive.
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In the film, the bombing the IRA bombing campaign is limited to a bank (1st bomb), a London bus and an airliner (failed).
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McGrath murders protestant neighbors to gain control of their farm property at auction and increase his land holdings. He is also a smuggler.
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This is not in the film. |
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Hennessy confronts Sean about his affair with Mary and deduces that Mary leaked information to McGrath about the bombings and change in the code words. Hennessy and Morrison beat McGrath until he reveals the names of the bombers; they then murder and bury him in the field. Bromley does not find out it was McGrath that ordered the bombings.
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British police identify O'Reily as the bomber. Bromley tells Hennessy the McGrath is the mole. Soldiers are on the way to arrest McGrath at Hennessy's farm. Hennessy agrees to question McGrath himself. He tortures McGrath with his pistol, obtains the bomber's names then murders him so the police can't arrest him.
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Maggie dates Ian Wood for a period of time and gains his trust. After masturbating him at his apartment, she gives him a laptop computer to give to her cousin in Belfast after his return trip from a security conference in Rome. The laptop has a bomb in it. Maggie is the bomb maker.
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Maggie has sex with Ian Wood then plants a bomb in his laptop computer while he is in the bathroom. She later tells the bombers that she was disgusted by having sex with him. One of the men in the group is the bomb maker, not Maggie. |
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Sean Morrison has no military or tracking experience. He is sent to request the service of a man named Micky Geraghty to track Nguyen Ngoc Minh. He is willing, but has a broken leg. His daughter Kerry offers to go in her father's place. Micky tells Sean that Kerry will only track and is not allowed to have a gun with her.
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Hennessy sends Sean to track down Quan Ngoc Minh in the forest.
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Kavanagh, O'Donnell and two other men find Nguyen Ngoc Minh's van in the forest. He kills all four with his knife and a pistol he took from others who were tracking him earlier. |
This does not happen in the film. |
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Kerry locates Nguyen Ngoc Minh's van in the forest when hearing the gunshots. Morrison is running towards the gunshots and finds them both just as Kerry shoots a flaregun at Minh; the flare gets stuck in and is burning up the backpack with the bomb in it. Morrison hurls the backpack away and the bomb explodes in the distance. Morrison stops Kerry from killing Minh, then gives him the names and location of the bombers. They go their separate ways. Morrison has sex with Kerry in the forest.
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Sean tracks down Quan Ngoc Minh's hideout, they fight with Quan taking Sean captive. Sean gives Quan the names and address of the bombers. They talk about family and fighting for a cause. Quan lets Sean go.
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Nguyen Ngoc Minh bluffs his way into the bomber's apartment and threatens them with a nonfunctional AK-47.
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Quan Ngoc Minh bluffs his way into the apartment complex to check for gas leaks. Soldiers are about to enter the bomber's apartment when the building supervisor tells them about a gas leak and makes them open up for the maintenance man (Quan) to enter and inspect. |
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The SAS team bursts into the apartment from the balcony above just as a gun battle starts between the bombers and Nguyen Ngoc Minh. The SAS shoot and kill everyone in the apartment except for Maggie. They beat Maggie until she tells them the flight information, but she brags that it is too late and the bomb will detonate in five minutes. The soldiers murder her after being told the plane went down and that there were to be no “loose ends”.
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Quan Ngoc Minh murders the four bombers and wounds Maggie with a machine gun equipped with an improvised silencer and with his bare hands after entering the apartment. Quan slips out of the apartment as the soldier blow apart the ceiling to enter. The soldiers torture Maggie for information; she tells them where the bomb is on the plane, then the soldiers murder her.
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The airliner Ian Wood is on descends for an emergency landing when informed about the bomb. As a flight attendant asks Ian Wood for his carry-on bag, the bomb explodes. The plane crashes and kills everyone on board.
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Security finds Ian Wood at the airport. They take the laptop from Wood and throw it onto an empty jetway where it explodes without injuring anyone.
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This does not happen in the book. |
Hennessy orders Morrison to kill his wife Mary for betraying him. Mossison goes to her London apartment and kills her with a pistol shot to the face.
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Kathrine Davies is not in the film. Hennessy is not part of the government, just a lawyer and member of the IRA.
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Hennessy is told by Katherine Davies that she knows about all of his activities with the IRA bombers. The British government will pardon several IRA member including his brother, but they own him now. |
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This does not happen in the book as Nguyen Ngoc Minh died when the SAS killed the bombers in their apartment.
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Quan Ngoc Minh tracks down Hennessy in London. Quan forces Hennessy to post a photo of himself kissing Maggie to the internet to expose his connection to the IRA bombers and his terrorist activities.
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Bromley attends a classified briefing in which details of the plane bombing are discussed and the members talked about planned government reprisals, including a "shoot to kill" operation against 25 IRA members to eliminate the IRA as an effective threat in the country. Hennessy and Morrison are on the list of people to be killed.
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This does not happen in the film. |
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This does not happen in the book as Nguyen Ngoc Minh died during the SAS raid on the Bombers apartment.
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At the end of the film, Quan Ngoc Minh returns to his restaurant and to Lam. The police decide to leave him alone and just observe and report on him.
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