Rating: 
Summary: A realistic look at stresses of life in Cuba
Review: I saw this film a week after returning from a trip to Cuba. The characters were incredibly like the people I met and spoke with there. Absolutely spot-on accurate. Some reviewers think it's "too negative," but I can attest to it's veracity. It would be hard to come up with a movie too negative about the real-life dramas of hardship and disillusion the people of Cuba are living. If you want to travel to Cuba and can't find a way to go, this film is the next-best thing.
Rating:
Summary: The essence of cinema vérité
Review: For me, "Azúcar Amarga" (Bitter Sugar) ranks right up there with the best films ever made about the Cuban experience under Fidel Castro. Although director Leon Ichaso must make due with Santo Domingo substituting for Havana, his real coup is that he's taken some cinema vérite footage he covertly filmed in Havana, smuggled it out of the country, and spliced it in with his Santo Domingo stuff.The result is electrifying: as water cannons and batons rain down on protestors, a young man turns his face to the camera and says: "Tell the world what is happening here." Incredible. To me, 'Azúcar' goes into the group of great films about Casto's Cuba, right beside 'Fresa y Chocolate' and 'Before Night Falls' (and, to a lesser extent, 'Guantanamera'). Unlike the others, 'Azúcar' is almost unrelentingly negative. There's no look at the hedonistic freedom of Batitsa's Cuba, like you get in 'Before Night Falls.' And there's none of the sly and gentle humor that marks 'Fresa.' Instead, the bloom is off the rose here. The regime is morally bankrupt and there's no going back.
Rating: 
Summary: One point of view
Review: I don't think anybody reasonable should be in the business of defending Fidel Castro and his grip on power in Cuba, but take the reviews of mainstream Cuban Americans in Miami with the appropriately large grain of salt. The situation in Cuba is complicated and this film provides a facile, and consequently limited, cinematic investigation of the big issues. Clearly there are many problems in Cuba, but Lavan's film fails to get to the more nuanced and complicated evaluation and gets stuck somewhere in the Helms-Burton "Devil on the throne" kind of analysis that leaves the informed viewer shaking his head and the less informed viewer with a simplistic sense of the politics of Cuba today. Watch this film, but ideally in the context of other films and with the knowledge that it is very biased.
Rating: 
Summary: Politically a bit simplistic; enjoy with a grain of salt
Review: 1. This is a good (not great movie)
2. To enjoy without bias, ignore the reviews (rhetoric) of ignorant Americans who have never been to Cuba and the "reviews" or better said - EXTREME bias of the ultra-rightist Cuban exiles who wish it was still 1958 when they prostituted themselves and the country to American corporations in exchange for being a national elite (while the MAJORITY of Cuban peasants starved most of the year)
3. Who am I to say this? Someone knowledgable on film, born of Cuban parents - someone who has actually BEEN to and SEEN for MYSELF the situation in Cuba, and someone who did a master's thesis on Cuban development and studied/researched ALL views on the subject for 3 years.
P>PS The Bushes and Reagans have been responsible for killing several thousand times more people than the big bad boogeyman Fidel. You all don't want democracy for Cuba, you want your beach houses and black servants back!
Rating:
Summary: Me tocó bien adentro...
Review: Como hijo de cubana exiliada, esta película me tocó bien adentro. Sin embargo, no hace falta haber crecido escuchando a la familia descargar contra Fidel para poder identificarse con la historia de "Azúcar Amarga." La historia de amor entre Gustavo (idealista partidario del régimen) y Yolanda (decepcionada y cansada de las mentiras del Castro-comunismo) se desenvuelve con un telón de cruda realidad y dureza de fondo: profesionales con años de estudio trabajando de mesoneros, jardineros o pianistas de bar; manifestaciones reprimidas; la música anglo y los pelos largos mal vistos; los enfermos de SIDA recluídos por la fuerza en un área en cuarentena cual leprosos; la profusa prostitución por unos pocos dólares o un regalo; y tantas y tantas promesas y sueños rotos. Hay tantos momentos de inmensa fuerza en la película que es difícil resumirlos para un lector. Simplemente vale la pena ver este excelente trabajo fotografiado en blanco y negro del director/co-escritor cubano Leon Ichaso.
Rating: 
Summary: Lack of depth
Review: This dominican movie is unfortunately an heavy-weighted political manifesto which lacks of subtility. Two parts are typical in this sense: the police scene with the young brother (associating "freedom" and "listening to american pop music") and the final one.
A recent cuban movie, Life is to Whistle, was as critical as Bitter Sugar, but expressed its ideas in a more inspired way.
The psychology of the character played by Mayte Vilan is not coherent. How can she act this way with the Italian tourist if her feelings towards her boyfriend are sincere?
Both heroes are of course beautiful and not so representative of the real cuban ethnic specificity.
Rating:
Summary: superb
Review: Bitter Sugar is by far my favorite Cuban movie. This movie deals with the current Cuban socio-political climate with brilliance. Each character represents an important part of the story and a particular perspective in Cuban politics: Gustavo, the idealistic follower of Castro's government; Yolanda, the beautiful, equally resourceful (in her own way) love interest of Gustavo who wants to go to Miami; Bobby, the rebel anti-Castro brother who goes to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate his dissatisfaction; Dr. Valdez, the incredibly witty father of the two, who has become both disillusioned and comlacent. In addition to painting a shockingly realistic view of modern-day Cuba, Azucar Amarga ("Bitter Sugar") provides us with a memorable love-story too.
Rating:
Summary: Cubas shame and reality
Review: a great video,describing the reality of a fail society who's citizen fight daily to survive.and 2 lovers caught in the middle.
even in todays cuba since this movie was made until now nothing has change in cuba.a vibrant people kept down by a ruthless dictator.
Rating:
Summary: Realistic
Review: Cuba is close to my heart and this paints an picture of the Cuba I visited in 1996 (although I wouldn't know about the hotel part, since we stayed in people's homes). It is a sad portrait of what has become of Fidel's Cuba. Beyond that, I found it well scripted, well acted and well shot. This may very well be the first DVD I buy...I want to see it over and over again.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating portrait of Cuban life
Review: The story of Gustavo, a young Cuban man who has bought into the Communist dream, and his gradual disillusionment as the lives of everyone around him fall apart. The story is perhaps too melodramatic (the ending, especially, is unfortunate), but it is sustained by its passion, the gorgeous photography and the wonderful soundtrack (isn't it available on CD somewhere?). I cared about these characters and I loved this film.
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