What do Vietnamese films need to escape the 'shadow' of foreign films?

Since the beginning of the year, Vietnamese movies have been quiet in theaters, except for three movies that have created a "fever" at the box office: "Mai", "Gap lai chi bau" and "Lat mat 7: Mot uoc". This shows that Vietnamese movies have not yet created an attraction for viewers and are facing fierce competition from foreign movies.

The topic still revolves around family matters.

On August 30, the movie "Hai Muoi" directed by Vu Thanh Vinh will be released in theaters. This is a movie with the theme of family love, telling the story of father and son love, which the director hopes will touch the audience's emotions through the saltiness of salt and the saltiness of life.

Artist Quyen Linh, after more than 20 years of absence from the screen, will return with a quality cast of actors: People's Artist Hong Van, People's Artist Viet Anh, Meritorious Artist Cong Ninh, actors Minh Luan, Tran Kim Hai, Huynh Bao Ngoc, Tu Tri, Nam Cha...

Director, Meritorious Artist Vu Thanh Vinh shares about the movie project "Hai Muoi". Photo: KK

Talking about the movie he participated in "Hai Muoi", artist Quyen Linh said that it was not an easy challenge. Because he wanted to bring the character's image as realistically as possible, without the help of makeup, he "grew" his beard and hair for 6 months and tried to lose more than 20kg in a short period of time.

Director, Meritorious Artist Vu Thanh Vinh shared: “I hope "Hai Muoi" will receive love and acceptance from the audience. The film is about Muoi's bitter journey of growing up in exchange for many lessons, making the audience deeply understand the value of father-child love, of sacred family affection.”

Revolving around family love stories, since the beginning of the year, there have been many movies released in theaters, but only a few have become "box office kings", bringing in hundreds of billions of dong such as: "Mai" (over 500 billion dong), "Lat mat 7: Mot giau" (482 billion dong) and "Gap lai chi bau" (reaching 100 billion dong).

Other films are about love and social life but the revenue is only a few tens of billions of VND such as: "Peach, Pho and Piano" (reaching 20.8 billion VND), "The Price of Happiness" (reaching 26 billion VND), the rest are films with revenue of only a few hundred million to less than 10 billion VND such as: "Fragile Flower" (430 million VND); or most recently the film "The Most Beautiful Summer", although it was previously expected to be a big hit, it continued to fall into the same path of failure. Released on June 28, the film had to quickly leave the theater with a revenue of more than 4 billion VND.

Before “The Most Beautiful Summer”, a series of Vietnamese films that suffered losses included “Claws” (revenue of 3.8 billion VND), “Murder on the 4th Floor” (revenue of 1.9 billion VND)… Most Vietnamese films have suffered losses in recent years, however, facing box office failure in 2024, producers still expressed surprise, even “shocked” and called for help like Mai Thu Huyen and Xuan Lan.

According to data from Box Office Vietnam, to date, the revenue of domestic film projects has grown to exceed the 1,500 billion VND mark. In particular, two works by two directors Ly Hai ("Flip Side 7: One Wish") and Tran Thanh ("Mai") have accounted for more than 2/3 of the total market share. Meanwhile, in contrast to the gloomy and unprofitable Vietnamese film market, foreign films that landed in Vietnam and premiered this summer have created a fever and made an impression, including "Noobita and the Earth Symphony" which earned nearly 150 billion VND, "Despicable Me" which earned more than 130 billion VND, "Emotional Fragments 2" which earned nearly 88 billion VND...

The movie "Flip Side 7: A Wish" by director Ly Hai brought in revenue of 482 billion VND.

Explaining the reason why many Vietnamese films failed, film critic Nguyen Phong Viet said: "The difference in distance between films shows that the quality of films in the Vietnamese film market is unstable and unsustainable. Therefore, since the beginning of this year, in addition to the three films that achieved high revenue, other films such as: "Claws", "The Most Beautiful Summer", "The Price of Happiness"... although the topics are a bit new, contributing to diversifying the Vietnamese film market, the stories and exploitation are not attractive and interesting enough to attract audiences."

In addition, foreign films shown in Vietnam are often blockbusters, even animated films are "making waves" in foreign markets. Therefore, the revenue of foreign films shown in Vietnam this summer is almost always high, many films reached the milestone of over 100 billion VND.

“Meanwhile, the Vietnamese film market during the summer movie season has a weakness, which is that there are no animated films. The reason is that Vietnamese filmmakers are not capable enough to create and produce quality, attractive animated films like those in foreign theaters. This is a very regrettable thing when Vietnamese films are missing out on a market share of the summer audience for cinema,” said film critic Nguyen Phong Viet.

Expectations for horror films and adaptations

Box Office Vietnam founder Nguyen Khanh Duong said: "According to our observations, compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, the interest and trend of going to the cinema of the audience for Vietnamese cinema has changed greatly. It can be seen that the two filmmakers Tran Thanh and Ly Hai are both people who grasp the psychology of the audience very well, so they do not have much difficulty in creating works that suit the general taste of the audience."

Vietnamese cinema today lacks animated films for young people. Conan movie poster.

However, many opinions say that not all films capture the right psychological focus of the audience, especially the youth - who make up the majority of moviegoers in theaters today. Therefore, authors, works, and film directors must diversify their scripts to suit the tastes of the audience in order to attract the audience.

According to Mr. Nguyen Khanh Duong, although the Vietnamese film market is somewhat gloomy in the first half of 2024, from now until the end of the year, it can be expected that the Vietnamese film market will have a breakthrough and change when a series of horror films inspired by Vietnamese folk legends appear.

After the recent box office success of Vietnamese horror films such as: "Quy cau", "Ke anh hon", "Bac kim thang", "Chuyen ma gan nha"... Vietnamese filmmakers are tending to use folk cultural materials in their works. From now until the end of the year, at least 4 films with horror and spiritual colors will be released, including: "Ma da" (director Nguyen Huu Hoang, scheduled to premiere on August 16), "Lam gia voi ma" (director Nguyen Nhat Trung, scheduled to premiere on August 30), "Cam" (director Tran Huu Tan, scheduled to premiere in September) and "Linh Mieu" (director Luu Thanh Luan, scheduled to premiere on November 22).

“These are films produced by famous filmmakers who have had many successful works. Therefore, we can believe that from now until the end of the year, these horror films will have stable revenue, and some will even have high revenue,” Mr. Nguyen Khanh Duong shared.

Besides, the film adaptation genre is also expected in the second half of the year, especially the films adapted from the works of writer Nguyen Nhat Anh. Among them, the film "Once upon a time there was a love story" is expected to create a buzz in the film market in the second half of the year.

Two Vietnamese horror films that will be released this August are expected by filmmakers to follow the trend and bring in box office revenue. Posters of the films "Ma da" and "Getting rich with ghosts".

"We can expect a breakthrough in Vietnamese cinema at the end of the year, especially the Tet film season will be quite exciting because up to now, filmmakers Tran Thanh, Tien Luat and Thu Trang have all announced new film projects to be released in theaters on this occasion. But for Vietnamese cinema to have more synchronous and uniform changes, filmmakers need to focus on investing more in perfecting from ideas, scripts to how to promote their works. At the same time, I think we need to open more cinema complexes to serve quality films," said film critic Nguyen Phong Viet.

However, the fierce competition of Vietnamese films not only includes foreign films but also online films, making Vietnamese filmmakers worried about their "brainchildren" about to be released in theaters. In fact, the movie-watching habits of the audience have changed greatly, especially in recent years, the explosive development of online movie platforms as well as the increasingly developed modern sound systems and televisions have made the audience less likely to go to the theater. Meanwhile, on these platforms, there are all kinds of films from many countries, from movies to long-running series, for the audience to choose from. Therefore, attracting audiences to the theater, which is already difficult, has become even more difficult.

According to director Nguyen Quang Dung, a movie project that earns hundreds of billions in revenue depends on many factors and is becoming increasingly unpredictable. Therefore, Vietnamese movies are facing greater challenges than ever before on the journey to bring audiences to the cinema.

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