AllMovie

The Eleventh Child is a drama film, directed by Dai Sijie and released in 1998. A coproduction of companies from Vietnam, France and Canada, the film stars Akihiro Nishida as Tang, a Vietnamese man who returns to his hometown upon learning that his brother is ill with leprosy. Community folklore holds when a family from the area gives birth to five sons and five daughters, they will gain the power to kill a large fish in the nearby lake whose flesh can cure the disease; Tang already has five sons and four daughters and his wife is pregnant once more, meaning that he may become the one who can fulfill the community's dreams.