His works are dense with political arguments, in which the view in one film may conflict with that of the other. Usually placing a woman at the centre of the story, Dang Nhat Minh closely traced Vietnamese historical struggles through the Sino-Vietnamese War (The Town Within Reach - 1983), the post-war period ("When The Tenth Month Comes" - 1984, The Girl on the River - 1987), the Đổi Mới economic reforms (The Return - 1994), and came back to one of the darkest phases in the post-independence Vietnam - The 1950s land reform in North Vietnam (The Guava Season - 2000). Except for explicit propaganda movies such as Miss Nhung, Don't Burn, and Hanoi: Winter 1946, there is often one unifying theme that runs through most of his films: Betrayal.