The problem of primetime movies repeating themes and lacking new faces

Television dramas are struggling due to the lack of both original scripts and new actors. The appeal of primetime dramas is gradually decreasing as every production exploits family themes with old stories and familiar actors.

Thanh Son and Viet Hoa co-starred in the 100-episode series. Photo: Producer

Duplicate scenario

On primetime TV, there are 3 films simultaneously exploring the growing up process of a group of close friends. “Cheer up, guys”, “Sao Venus shoots hearts at Sao Mars”, “Near and far roads” synthesize common problems in the journey of starting a career, family conflicts, and love stories.

In particular, there are scenes of jealousy, ambiguous flirting, and "cutting one's coat according to one's cloth" in married life... In recent years, scenes of jealousy and confronting the "third party" have been repeated in many television productions with family themes.

Notable Vietnamese films in 2024 such as “Let’s Love Each Other Peacefully”, “We of 8 Years Later”, “Heart Rescue Station” all have many scenes of jealousy and adultery. A work based on real life material can be “easy to feel, easy to absorb” but can easily fall into a situation of lacking innovation, monotony and predictability.

The overexploitation and abuse of love triangle dramas on the screen has made the audience bored. Meanwhile, the television genre in the world has had major turning points, with a series of hit series, exploiting all kinds of topics from healing, detective, psychology or even difficult genres such as survival, historical, time travel, science fiction.

In a conversation with Lao Dong, actress Luong Thu Trang said that each country's cinema has a different development trend and Vietnamese cinema follows the direction of providing content suitable for Vietnamese audiences.

"However, it can be said that our scripts are not abundant, so we are somewhat limited to scripts that the audience is familiar with," she said.

On the other hand, the family theme is exploited by many filmmakers because through the films, the audience can easily find themselves in the pressure of worries, sympathize with the journey to find good values in life and heal the character's soul.

Actors familiar to the audience

TV dramas also face another challenge: the lack of new faces, young actors who have not yet proven their abilities and ensured ratings for their works.

In 3 years, Manh Truong played the main role 5 times in the films “Love and Ambition”, “Criminal Police: Crocodile File”, “Taste of Love”, “Don’t Say When in Love”, “We of 8 Years Later”… and mostly played the role of a love-sick, rich young man.

Meanwhile, Quynh Kool acted in 5 films, with 2 female lead roles and 3 supporting roles. Doan Quoc Dam once caused a stir when appearing on the small screen, from the painter in “Thuong ngay nang ve”, the smuggling boss in “Dau tri” to the abusive man in “Journey of Justice”, the blind man in “Gara hanh phuc”.

Audiences constantly see Thanh Son playing the roles of serious, kind men, while Hong Diem always plays roles with tragic, unfortunate fates. The old and familiar character motif also makes it difficult for actors to break out and renew their image in the eyes of the public.

In fact, the young cast has "landed" on primetime dramas and shown their potential. There is a paradoxical story when rookie faces like Hoang Ha, Quoc Anh, Tran Nghia, Ngoc Huyen received strong support, somewhat overwhelming the experienced stars like Huyen Lizzie, Manh Truong... With "We of 8 years later", the film gradually lost steam, the cast of characters 8 years later who were considered famous were under pressure from the "shadow" of their juniors.

Or recently, the movie “Walking in the Bright Sky” has also spread and been well received by young audiences thanks to the natural and humorous acting of Thu Ha Ceri and Long Vu. The movie’s excerpts attracted millions of views, creating a trend of “finding a lover like Chai”, “pampering your girlfriend like Chai” that many people responded to.

Actress Thuy Anh also agrees that although the audience feels like she has acted in many movies, in fact she has never taken on two projects at the same time.

Choosing young, unknown actors can be risky, but it is necessary to bring a new look to primetime dramas and create opportunities for them to prove their abilities and hone their skills.

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