Film & TV - Saigoneer

Vietnam Arrests 7 Suspects Behind Streaming Site HiAnime on Piracy Charges

2026-07-08T10:00:00+07:00

As part of the current crackdown on intellectual property infringement, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security recently took down a major network of websites providing illegal anime streaming.

As Tuổi Trẻ reports, on July 1, the Economic, Corruption and Smuggling Crime Investigation Police Force (C03) charged seven people for alleged copyright infringement, four of whom were arrested and also charged with money laundering.

The police investigation shows that, from 2020 until April 2026, five members of the group created over 100 websites hosting and providing streaming service on over 26,000 series and movie titles without permission from IP owners. Their operation had allegedly earned approximately US$12.85 million (VND308.4 trillion) in ad revenue before being shut down just a few months ago.

The streaming websites went through several name changes over the years, but the most current iteration was HiAnime, a well-known media archive with features similar to Netflix.

According to the police, members were paid by foreign advertising companies in cryptocurrency, which was laundered through intermediaries before being transferred to their personal accounts at local banks. They also purchased cars and real estate to hide the true origins of their earnings from authorities.

C03 carried out the crackdown based on intelligence from US organizations, local media reports, including the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Motion Picture Association (MPA) and Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).

Vietnam has been intensifying efforts to squash piracy and reinforce intellectual property rights in the past months in direct response to complaints from the United States Trade Representative (USTR), which applied the “Priority Foreign Country” status on Vietnam for the first time in 13 years in April 2026.

The designation Priority Foreign Country means that USTR has 30 days to determine whether a formal investigation is warranted. Ambassador Jamieson Greer moved forward with the decision in May, announcing: “While Vietnam has recently taken some steps toward addressing IP concerns that the United States has chronicled over many years in USTR’s Annual Special 301 Report, IP infringement in Vietnam continues to impair the competitive position of U.S. innovators and creators. We need to see Vietnam resolve these long-standing concerns, including on a range of IP enforcement issues, in a manner that is sustained and that deters future IP infringements.”

Japan is also another party with a vested interest in Vietnam’s anti-piracy efforts. In July, Kyodo News reports, the Japanese government presented plans to use official development assistance (ODA) to support 10 developing nations’ efforts to curtail piracy of Japanese anime, games, and manga. These include Southeast Asian infringement hot spots like Indonesia and Vietnam.

According to Kyodo, government data shows that last year, Japan suffered JPY10.4 trillion in losses from illicit media sharing and fake merchandise. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is in charge of ODA, will start determining local needs in August and supporting funds are expected to be available from April 2027.

Top image via Lao Động.

Review: From Czechia, ‘Trường Hè, 2001’ Bridges Family Divides, Both Onscreen and in Real Life

2026-06-26T15:00:00+07:00

Summer School, 2001, directed by Czech-Vietnamese writer and director Dužan Duong, was first released last year and has received critical acclaim within the Czech Republic and Europe. Now, the film has come to Vietnam, where it is available in Galaxy, Cinestar, and Beta theaters across Saigon, Hanoi and Đà Nẵng.

Summer School, 2001 (Trường hè, 2001 / Letní škola, 2001) takes place in Cheb, a small town in the Czech Republic near the German border, where a family of Vietnamese immigrants sell cheap counterfeit goods at a local marketplace. It is the summer of 2001. After having spent the past ten years in Vietnam living with his grandparents, 17-year-old Kiên finally returns to unite with his family. He is no longer the child that his parents last saw, but now a grown young man with pierced ears and flashy red-dyed hair. That summer, Kiên and his ten-year-old younger brother Tài attend a local summer school to improve their Czech.

The movie poster.

What unfolds in the course of the film is a family drama, shaped by tensions and antagonisms between the male family members. Kiên despises his father for having sent him away to Vietnam alone, while his father feels increasingly self-conscious and ostracized within the Vietnamese community, not only due to rumors of his involvement in plans to demolish the marketplace, but also for his older son’s unapologetic and eccentric style and appearance — about whom he overhears friends making homophobic comments. The tensions between Kiên and his father also spill over to Kiên’s relationship with his brother, whose need for a hearing aid and its financial costs Kiên seems to blame for why he was sent to Vietnam.

From left to right: Dũng (Doãn Hoàng Anh), Kiên (Bùi Thế Dương), Tài (Tô Tiến Tài), and Lan (Lê Quỳnh Lan).

The film is structured in three sequences, each told from the perspective of one of the main characters: Kiên’s father Dũng, Kiên’s brother Tài, and Kiên. The film’s structure is no doubt key to its capacity to startle and stagger readers, the ways in which it continuously builds and breaks tension. Each perspective builds upon the others, bringing to light what had previously been unseen, unsaid, unfelt. Indeed, much of the family’s conflicts are fueled by miscommunication, or rather, their aversion to communication. Yet at the same time, one wonders how that could at all have been avoided following a decade of separation.

Saigoneer had the opportunity to speak with Bùi Thế Dương, the actor who play Kiên, who recounted some fascinating aspects of the coming-to-be of the film. Funnily enough, when he was cast for the role of Kiên, the director had no idea that Dương’s own story had a lot in common with Kiên’s. “I was born in Vietnam, and I lived with my parents until I was around four years old. Then they moved to the Czech Republic to work. In my real-life story, they tried to bring me there when I was five or six, but they couldn’t because it was around 2008, and there was the financial crisis and everything, so I wasn’t able to go. Then, when I was 12, they finally brought me there,” he explained. “In that way, my story is kind of similar to the main character in the movie. Of course, it’s not exactly the same as what happens in the film, especially because I arrived later, around 2015, but summer school still exists in many forms. It’s not always literally a school. It can also be a group for people who want to learn Czech. I think my life story isn’t as dramatic as the main character’s, but it’s very similar.”

Having grown up in Vietnam, Kiên finds it hard to adjust to his new life in Europe.

Dương was first cast for a teaser film meant to raise funds for the actual movie, the production of which was not guaranteed at that point. Surprisingly, before Summer School 2001, he had no acting experience, nor did he think he would pursue a career in one. Indeed, he somewhat randomly signed up for auditions after stumbling upon a Facebook post advertising auditions.

Viewers may be surprised to learn that Dương is not the only one who is new to acting in the film. With the exception of two characters — the father and his boss — all of the characters are played by individuals with no prior acting experience; according to Dương, Dužan prefers to call them “naturals” as opposed to “non-professional actors.” This is remarkable, not least of all for the fact that, speaking for myself here, at no point in the film did I ever doubt the actors’ credentials nor feel the acting to be amateurish. This is perhaps most impressive in the performance of child actor Tô Tiến Tài as Kiên’s younger brother Tài, who undertook the seemingly oxymoronic task of performing innocence — and its capacity for both anguish and jubilation.

Tài is a breakout star.

Although the film is almost entirely in Vietnamese, the original script was written entirely in Czech. Given the director’s limited Vietnamese, actors were thus given the ability to improvise and create their own lines, based on the general shape of the plot. In Dương’s case, he did not even read the script: “I saw the script, and I was like, no way.” He elaborated, “Maybe I just love being in front of the camera. I could do it somehow, and it felt natural. I don’t know. Also, Dužan helped me a lot when we were filming.”

The movie also explores Kiên's romantic connection too.

The reception of the film in the Czech Republic has been overwhelmingly positive. The film received eight nominations at the 2025 Czech Lion Awards and was nominated this year for two Czech Film Critics’ Awards. The film’s director Dužan attributes the Czech support and enthusiasm for the film to the fact that it offered an avenue for the Czech public to get a glimpse into the inner life of the Czech-Viet community, who are relied upon for mini-markets that are open all the time, as well as for delicious Vietnamese food, which has become a staple in the Czech food landscape. The beginnings of the Vietnamese population in the Czech Republic roots back to when Vietnam began sending students and workers to what was formerly Czechoslovakia as part of a framework of workforce exchange programs between communist countries. Summer School, 2001 is notable in that it is the first Czech-Vietnamese film with meaningful Vietnamese representation to have been shown in mainstream cinemas in the Czech Republic.

“When we brought the film to cinemas in the Czech Republic,” Dương remarked, “a lot of people told us, ‘This is the first time I’ve brought my parents to the cinema.’ Before, their parents didn’t speak Czech, so going to the cinema wasn’t really something they did.” And in fact, that was precisely the experience of Dương’s own family with the film. He recalled the experience: “Afterward, they were all crying. They came to me, hugged me, and I felt so grateful to have been part of the movie. Actually, I think maybe we broke through a thin wall between us. As I said, I didn’t live with them throughout my childhood, so for some periods we didn’t get along very well. The movie gave us a chance to sit down and really talk to each other.”

Childhood and family connection are two main themes of Summer School, 2001.

Of course, the film will inevitably carry different meanings for audiences in Vietnam and the Czech Republic. But for Dương, at its core, the message of the film remains the same. “The film is actually about a family struggling with a lack of communication and connection, and in the end, they find their way back to each other. That was something I also talked about in the Czech Republic, because a lot of parents there don’t have enough time for their kids. I think it’s similar in Vietnam, too. Usually, parents go out to work while the kids are at school or home alone. I wouldn’t say that breaks the relationship, but it can make it harder to build a strong connection… Their love language is often, ‘I’m taking care of you.’ But kids also need emotional connection and family bonding. I hope people can become closer to each other, or maybe talk more, after watching the movie. Yeah, that’s the whole point of the film.”

Images courtesy of Spring Auteurs.

Indie Short Film 'Saigon Kiss' Is a Quintessential Saigon Queer Love Story

2026-06-22T14:00:00+07:00

Is there a meet-cute more characteristically Saigon than a motorbike breakdown and subsequent friendly assist from a stranger?

Such is the premise of how Mơ and Vicky, the romantic interests in the indie short film Saigon Kiss, encountered each other amidst this bustling city of 10 million souls. Saigon Kiss is the brainchild of writer and director Nguyễn Hồng Anh, and producers Nguyễn Thị Xuân Trang and Andrew Lee.

Director Nguyễn Hồng Anh (right) on set.

The film chronicles a chance encounter between martial arts instructor Mơ (Nguyễn Vũ Trúc Như) and dancer Vicky (Thương Lê) right on the street of Saigon — hawk-eyed Saigoneers would immediately recognize Thị Nghè Bridge as the venue for this budding romance to bloom. When Vicky’s scooter malfunctions, she is noticed by Mơ and receives the latter’s help to push the bike to a corner repair shop. While waiting for the fix, they get to talking and bonding over their life passions for martial arts and dance.

Nominating bridges as the most romantic venue in Saigon to meet new people.

Edited with a crisp, cozy palette that can pass for a Honda commercial, Saigon Kiss is a quintessential Saigon romance, from the setting, title, to how our queer leads meet. One could also argue that the fact that it’s a same-sex story is also very Saigon, the unofficial queer capital of Vietnam. A “Saigon kiss,” as the production team defines, is a small burn on the inner right calf, typically caused by accidentally bumping into the sizzling exhaust pipe of a motorbike.

Bonding over getting your bike fixed is way better than Tinder.

Saigon Kiss had its international premiere at the 46^th Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2024, where it clinched a Special Mention by the Queer Jury. The short was also screened at the BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival in the UK.

Nguyễn Vũ Trúc Như plays Mơ and Thương Lê plays Vicky.

“Saigon Kiss is an attempt to take a snapshot of a rapidly changing modern metropolis,” director Hồng Anh writes in the director’s statement. “Like the city, both protagonists, Mơ and Vicky, currently find themselves in a transitional period. Both struggle to find room for themselves to reflect. However, despite the ever-changing landscape and fast pace of this place, they find solace and tenderness in each other's company.”

Watch the short film's trailer below:

Photos courtesy of Saigon Kiss.

A (Literally) Brief History of Vietnamese Representation in 'Mean Girls' (2004)

2026-06-05T11:00:00+07:00

Written by Saturday Night Live alum Tina Fey and premiered in 2004, Mean Girls is often heralded as a sharp, self-aware comedy that was ahead of its time, yet still holds up surprisingly well today. Alas, its depiction of Asians has aged a little more poorly, even though at the time of its release, the Asian representation was shockingly accurate for its time, despite some haphazard characterizations.

In Mean Girls, a previously home-schooled Cady Heron was plopped back into an American high school after 12 years in Africa. The film follows her fish-out-of-water experiences as she learns how to navigate the complex politics and shenanigans of high school.

For Vietnamese kids with limited exposure to American culture like me, this premise was incredibly helpful because we were all Cadys ourselves: all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed to explore American school culture.

During lunch, Cady is introduced to the geopolitical map of the school canteen, where cliques are divided into different tables like world sovereigns. Amongst the Plastics, Unfriendly Black Hotties, and Sexually Active Band Geeks is the Cool Asians, spearheaded by its leader Trang Pak and deputy Sun Jin Dinh.

Trang Pak (Ky Pham) in red tank top and Sun Jin Dinh (Danielle Nguyen) in black shirt with pink letters.

This is where Mean Girls first failed its Asians: while both characters are Vietnamese, their names are a hodgepodge of Vietnamese and Korean names. I have to give the casting credits for hiring actual Vietnamese to play them, however: Ky Pham plays Trang Pak and Danielle Nguyen plays Sun Jin Dinh.

Trang Pak caught making out with Coach Carr.

Later in the film, we discover that the rumor that Trang made out with Coach Carr is, in fact, true and he was grooming her. I have mixed feelings. Nonetheless, the film’s top Vietnamese representation comes later, during a group therapy session in the gym where the girls are encouraged to have a heart-to-heart to make peace.

Trang Pak: Tại sao mày giành các anh của tao quài dzậy? (Why do you keep stealing my men?)
Sun Jun Dinh: Mày chỉ có ghen vì mấy thằng con trai thích tao nhiều hơn thôi (You’re just jealous because they like me more.)
Trang Pak: Làm ơn đi mày, hông dám đâu? (Please, don’t even.)

This obviously failed the Bechdel Test, but I found it delightful that the lines were delivered in Vietnamese, and fairly decipherable Vietnamese at that. I suspect the actresses improvised the lines themselves, because Tina Fey cannot be trusted with writing for non-white characters.

However, this is where Mean Girls failed its Asian the second time: Trang’s second line was mistranslated in the subtitle as “N****, please,” making her look like a racist for no reason.

On Shooting an Entire Movie on 35mm Film: The Curious Case of 'Quán Kỳ Nam'

2026-05-31T11:00:00+07:00

“Let’s go to Vietnam!” declared Sabrina Baracetti, president of the Far East Film Festival (FEFF) in Udine, Italy, as she wrapped up her introduction for Leon Lê's Quán Kỳ Nam (Kỳ Nam Inn). Sitting in the Teatro Nuovo, watching Quán Kỳ Nam unfold for the first time, I felt an overwhelming surge of pride.

Quán Kỳ Nam does exactly what Baracetti promised: it does not showcase the hyper-modern, rapidly developing Vietnam of today; rather, it captures a deeply tactile Vietnamese essence, distilled down to the flicker of a single oil lamp or the hum of a rusty electric fan. Sharing this experience with an international audience, I felt a profound connection to how our people were portrayed with kindness, sensitivity, and a resilient sense of community, bonding to rebuild a post-war nation. Crucially, Leon allows his characters to be beautifully flawed. They are petty, guarded, and endearingly humane. These are people tentatively navigating the unfamiliar terrain of peacetime, having spent years bracing for the worst. All these quiet, lingering conflicts are gently woven through a forbidden romance between a young, rising intellectual and a widow tied to the former regime.

Quán Kỳ Nam actress Ngô Hồng Ngọc (second from left), director Leon Lê (second from right) and Far East Film Festival's Vietnamese programmer, Nguyên Lê (far right).

Nguyên Lê, the Vietnamese programmer for FEFF, notes that he seeks films “where the essence is local but the expression is global.” As he rightly pointed out, Quán Kỳ Nam “does precisely this.” It takes the universally understood geometry of a love triangle and embeds it within the highly specific context of 1970s Vietnam. It makes the mundane, quiet moments of human existence feel entirely refreshing, captivating international audiences without ever resorting to tired, exoticised tropes.

But the fervor surrounding Quán Kỳ Nam in Udine did not stem solely from its narrative heart. Much of the heat generated by the film was a triumph of pure craft: it marks the first Vietnamese feature in two decades to be shot entirely on 35mm analogue celluloid.

The struggles of pioneering

As the 35mm celluloid process constantly evolves, it is no longer the fragile art form of decades past. While it remains a revered staple in major industries in Hollywood and Europe, prized for its unique texture and grain, the reality in Vietnam is starkly different. For feature-length cinema, it has been 20 years since a production was shot entirely on 35mm. In television, the gap is even wider. The local industry migrated to digital over three decades ago, leaving analogue equipment either hopelessly outdated, broken down, or entirely unusable. This infrastructural void posed a monumental challenge for Leon Lê and his team.

Recalling the genesis of the project, Leon acknowledges the sheer luck of securing unwavering support from his financial backers right from the start. “I knew that with the budget I had, I was going to shoot on film,” he explains. “The reason the investors agreed to support the project was mostly that they loved my first film, Song Lang. They fully understood that a project like Quán Kỳ Nam is extremely risky commercially.”

However, securing the generous funding to shoot on analogue film only solved half the battle. While financially possible, it was practically impossible logistically. The infrastructure simply did not exist. At least, not until director of photography Bob Nguyễn (Quán Kỳ Nam, Song Lang) proved it could be done. This required working from the ground up.

“The DOP had to train the rest of the crew,” Leon remembers. “Young filmmakers haven't worked with film, haven't practiced with it, don't know how to load film, and don't know how to attach the magazine to the camera. The DOP had to put them through a training process.”

The education extended far beyond the film set. “Then we had to collaborate with a film developing lab and teach them,” Leon adds. “They were used to developing 35-exposure photo rolls, so how do you develop a five-minute reel? But I was very confident in my team.”

So, driven by the uncompromising dedication of Leon and his crew, Vietnam finally has a new 35mm feature, offering a deeply textured, organic cinematic experience that cuts through years of crisp, sterile digital imagery.

A still from Quán Kỳ Nam.

A celluloid renaissance or a lone exception?

Leon remains resolute in his commitment to the medium and expresses unwavering faith in his team for future 35mm projects. “For all my upcoming projects, I still plan to shoot on film and continue to develop and scan in Vietnam,” he reveals. His confidence lies in local ingenuity: “Generally speaking, Vietnamese people are very smart. They tinker with things out of curiosity and eventually figure it out. It's just that they are hesitant, so they haven't done it yet. But if they want to, they can.”

Yet, Leon harbors no illusions that his personal obsession as an auteur will revolutionize the wider Vietnamese film industry. “There will be crazy people like me who want to do it, but to call it a recovery or renaissance of celluloid — probably not,” he admits. He believes a problem also lies in the current state of mainstream Vietnamese cinema: “Looking at the Vietnamese film market right now, it's still struggling. The timeframe of a production from concept to scripts, casting, shooting, post-production, release... they do it so quickly and carelessly. How could they invest in [analogue filmmaking]? It's both risky and costly. You have to love the outcome and love the process to be able to endure it.”

Nguyên Lê echoes these concerns regarding the state of the industry, noting the friction between analogue filmmaking and modern Vietnamese sensibilities. “It is unfortunate the format is more costly and time-consuming in a society more careful with our spending and our timing, and in a culture that has a tendency to treat the latest as being the greatest,” he observes.

However, the programmer remains hopeful about the ripple effect of Leon Le's uncompromising ethos. He predicts these formats will “live on” in the short film arena, citing Chín (Ripe) as a recent example, or that the rigorous storytelling methods of Leon and his crew will be “studied and carried over,” ultimately “paving the way for higher quality, more internationally competitive productions.”

Listening to their reflections leaves me with a lingering sense of unease. The stark divide between independent and commercial filmmaking in Vietnam is undeniable. They are funded differently, crafted differently, and targeted at entirely different demographics. To succeed domestically, mainstream commercial products often rely heavily on familiar character tropes and highly specific cultural shorthand, what Nguyên terms “doubly-local expression.”

This approach stands in direct opposition to Nguyên's “local essence, global expression” attribute that makes Quán Kỳ Nam so universally translatable. Until the wider industry learns to bridge this gap by placing artistic rigor over rushed, hyper-localized commercialism, Vietnamese cinema will, unfortunately, continue to struggle to secure its rightful place on the international stage.

The looming threat: AI, VFX vs. The soul of cinema

In Quán Kỳ Nam, eagle-eyed viewers might occasionally spot modern architecture lurking in the corners of street scenes or looming in the distance during rooftop shots. When asked about this, Leon is refreshingly blunt. “I really hate VFX,” he admits. “Because there are special effects done practically that look absolutely amazing compared to VFX. Especially with those action and martial arts movies in Hollywood right now, they abuse VFX so much, and it looks very fake. So, not everything new is good; it has to be appropriate.”

And his philosophy works entirely for the world of Quán Kỳ Nam. For an international audience, these modern anomalies easily go unnoticed. More importantly, attempting to digitally patch these details to perfect the “vintage” illusion would be disastrous. A rough, modern VFX job would glaringly stand out against the rich, organic grain of the 35mm film, completely ruining the meticulously crafted, authentic 1970s Vietnam they worked so hard to build.

To my mind, VFX should be a tool used to enhance a filmmaker’s vision, not a synthetic bandage used to cover mistakes or cut corners in production. But the creeping reliance on Artificial Intelligence is far more insidious; it is an unacceptable intrusion into the creative process that is already pushing genuine artists out of work. We are currently witnessing a dangerous era where AI is being hastily embraced for cheap commercial gain, all while legislation painfully struggles to catch up with the harm being done to genuine artists.

Yet, when asked about the threat of AI replacing filmmakers, Leon remains resolutely confident. “They can never do my job,” he declares. For him, the creative process is intrinsically human. Only he possesses the vivid, visceral memories of his mother and aunts visiting his grandfather at a post-war re-education camp, the exact memories that served as the primary, direct inspiration for the character Kỳ Nam. There is no technology in the world, present or future, capable of synthetically recreating that level of lived trauma, personal emotion, and artistic vision.

Ngô Hồng Ngọc (left), director Leon Lê (right) at the Far East Film Festival.

However, programmer Nguyên offers a sobering reality check regarding the wider Vietnamese industry. “I don’t believe other filmmakers share Leon’s sentiments, but I do hope to be proven wrong,” he notes. “As I noted in my essay and industry report for this year’s FEFF, many stages of the cinematic creative process in Vietnam right now feature AI, with some finding it a gift from above and others deeming it a hasty shortcut.”

The human resistance

Leon's observation on the mainstream Vietnamese machine is entirely valid, yet there is a sliver of hope he might be overlooking. We are currently witnessing an infiltration: a new wave of independent filmmakers successfully making their commercial debuts. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ recent regulation changes, strictly mandating human authorship for any Oscar submission, serve as a monumental, institutional pushback against generative AI.

Ultimately, cinema is a medium built entirely on human vulnerability. I wholeheartedly echo programmer Nguyên’s resounding final sentiment: “Give me imperfect films with soul — and I like quite a few! — any day.”

Photos courtesy of Far East Film Festival.

Dispatch From Udine: Vietnam's Cinema Reaches the World Stage While Rooted in Local Culture

2026-05-24T14:00:00+07:00

Vietnamese cinema experienced a watershed moment at the 28^th Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy.

Long recognized as a vital European hub for Asian film, the festival’s 2026 edition, which ran from April 24 to May 2, went beyond mere representation, turning into a platform where Vietnamese narratives commanded attention and critical acclaim. Four Vietnamese films were selected for screening: Leon Lê’s Quán Kỳ Nam (Ky Nam Inn), Hàm Trần’s Tử chiến trên không (Hijacked), Bùi Thạc Chuyên’s Địa đạo: Mặt trời trong bóng tối (Tunnels: Sun in the Dark) and Phan Gia Nhật Linh’s Đại tiệc trăng máu 8 (Blood Moon Rite 8).

The festival's reception confirmed a shift in momentum. Bùi Thạc Chuyên's Địa đạo won both the Mulberry Award for Best Screenplay and the Crystal Mulberry audience award, marking the first time a Vietnamese film has won even one award in the festival's history.

The success extended beyond the screen. Two ongoing film projects were selected for the Focus Asia in-production industry sidebar program: Dear Sơn An, directed by Bùi Kim Quy (produced by Varan, Vietnam, and A Company Film, Germany) in its All Genres Project Market 2026, and Chớp bóng (Picturehouse), directed by Nguyễn Võ Nghiêm Minh (produced by Girelle Production, France, East Films, Vietnam, Add Oil Films, Singapore, and Daluyong Studio, Philippines) for the Far East in Progress 2026 initiative.

Industry insiders at the festival noted that films finding audiences and projects securing international partnerships signal the transition of Vietnamese cinema from the margins to the global stage.

The more local we stay, the further we can travel

For decades, international perceptions of Vietnam were shaped by external narratives. As FEFF curator and consultant Nguyên Lê points out, the country was often reduced to a jungle backdrop or a conflict zone in American-led stories.

When it comes to defining or understanding Vietnamese cinema, there have historically been two approaches, Nguyên notes: “Any film about Vietnam is either a documentary or a film about the war that is told from an outsider perspective.” This means they are stories about Vietnamese but not told from a Vietnamese perspective.

Thus, what is happening now is a vital reclamation of perspective. Vietnamese filmmakers are reframing narratives from insider perspectives. Bùi Thạc Chuyên highlighted how even language reveals this divide: “In the US perspective, they call it the Vietnam War, but from the Vietnamese perspective, they call it the War against Americans. It is the first step to really show that this war is very complex. It's not only a conflict between nations and forces, but also between ideologies, and between the same Vietnamese who follow different factions.”

For Chuyên, whose research for Địa đạo spanned over a decade, storytelling is inseparable from personal exploration. “I don't really think of how I would tell the story or where the story can reach,” he explains. “Whenever I make a film, it's also a discovery. I'm discovering myself, and I'm discovering about the topic as well.”

Bùi Thạc Chuyên at the festival.

Phan Gia Nhật Linh sees this moment as a turning point in global awareness: “I think the world is telling so many stories, but they haven't heard a story from Vietnam yet. And for years, our story was told by Americans, Chinese, and Koreans. And now we have a new generation of filmmakers who can make really good films. So now we start telling our story, and the world can now hear our story.”

This search for authenticity is also echoed by filmmaker Leon Lê, who actively avoids the exoticization or fetishization that international markets sometimes demand. In Quán Kỳ Nam, he handles memory and the legacy of French colonialism in Saigon with artistic restraint, allowing the story’s context to unfold naturally rather than explaining it outright.

The shift towards representation and genre

One of the most striking aspects of contemporary Vietnamese cinema is its expanding range. Where earlier filmmakers often faced strict political and commercial limitations, today’s generation is experimenting more freely with form, genre, and subject matter.

The rise of horror and folklore-based storytelling is particularly significant. In the past, supernatural elements in Vietnamese films often had to be rationalized or explained. Now, filmmakers are embracing the mystical and the unknown as legitimate narrative tools. Local folklore, such as the figure of the Vietnamese vampire known as Phí Phông, is being reimagined for modern audiences. These stories differ markedly from western or even other Asian interpretations of similar themes, offering something distinctly Vietnamese while still appealing to global genre fans.

At the same time, representation within narratives is evolving. Traditional war films have often centered on male protagonists and action-driven plots. In contrast, newer works are increasingly foregrounding women as central figures. This shift reflects a broader recognition of women’s roles in Vietnam’s past and present, particularly in times of conflict and resilience. By reframing these perspectives, filmmakers are diversifying their stories and also challenging long-standing cinematic conventions.

Phan Gia Nhật Linh speaks to the audience.

Stylistically, the industry is becoming more versatile. From comedies like Đại tiệc trăng máu 8 to action-thrillers like Tử chiến trên không, Vietnamese cinema is no longer confined to a single identity. This diversity reflects both creative ambition and a growing understanding of audience expectations. Even when working with adapted material, Linh emphasizes localization, “I choose stories that haven’t been told in Vietnam before, and then I adapt them to fit our context. That’s why the industry is growing. It’s also why audiences are choosing Vietnamese films over foreign ones.”

Industry challenges and the path forward

Despite these achievements, the Vietnamese film industry remains in a state of flux. Rapid growth brings both opportunity and instability, and sustaining momentum requires more than creative success. “The Vietnamese film industry today is like a fireworks show. It looks spectacular from a distance, but once you get up close, there are things to consider. Because, as you know, just like in real life, standing right under the fireworks carries a risk of fire. It’s very unstable and fraught with danger,” says Nguyên Lê.

One of the most pressing challenges is infrastructure. While filmmakers are producing compelling work, the systems needed to support international distribution and promotion are still developing. Festivals like FEFF play a crucial role in bridging this gap, but long-term success will depend on building consistent pathways to global audiences.

Another challenge lies in defining the audience itself. As the industry becomes more vibrant and diverse, questions arise about who these films are ultimately for. Domestic viewers have different expectations than international ones, and balancing these perspectives is not always straightforward. There is a risk that in trying to appeal to global markets, films might lose the very specificity that makes them unique.

Yet many filmmakers see this as a false dilemma. The emerging consensus is that authenticity is the key. Stories that remain grounded in local culture, language, and experience are precisely what attract global audiences seeking something new. As filmmakers continue to explore their own histories, experiment with new forms, and connect with audiences both at home and abroad, they are reshaping not only how Vietnam is represented on screen, but also how it participates in the global cinematic conversation.

The success at the 28^th Far East Film Festival is a signal. Vietnamese cinema is finding its voice, and the world is beginning to listen.

Photos courtesy of Far East Film Festival.

Far From Vietnam: A 1967 French Anti-War Film Grapples With Its Own Contradictions

2026-04-18T21:26:38+07:00

French cinema experienced a creative renaissance in the 1960s with arguably the most influential movement in its history, the French New Wave. Intellectuals within this movement strived for new techniques to tell stories in ways never seen before. Most of them were socialists who were against the American war in Vietnam.

While the filmmakers were often at odds with the general public on many topics, in this situation, both sides' views were aligned. French society viewed the intervention as aggression against Vietnamese people’s right to self-determination. After the escalation in 1965, public opinion was strongly on the Vietnamese side. Therefore, when Robert Bozzi, a Parisian gallerist, organized an operation to send medicine to Vietnam with the help of many artists, it was rather surprising that local cineasts were silent.

Bozzi pointed out the matter to his director friend Chris Marker, who then decided to create a project for Vietnam. Always seen as separate from his contemporaries because his works resemble those of an essayist rather than a director, Marker might be less famous than some of the most renowned directors of this period. He would progressively work on the relationship between political engagement and art throughout his filmography. Loin du Vietnam (Far From Vietnam), the cinematic work that was born of this initiative, is no exception.

The film poster.

Loin du Vietnam is hard to classify. Marker gathered a group of more than 150 cineasts, intellectuals, technicians, and historians to work on the film voluntarily, including Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Agnès Varda, Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Resnais who served as directors with him. At first, the project was intended to be a cohesive piece of work from every participant, but it evolved into an 11-chapter movie released in 1967. A militant essay criticizing the US intervention in Vietnam, it goes further than simple political commitment and mixes fiction and documentary to offer different perspectives on the event, going from historical review to personal, intimate thoughts.

War of the rich against war of the poor

The entire film's perspective on the war is established on the outset via an opening voice-over sequence:

“On one side, the United States of America, the largest military power of all time. Since 1965, the start of the escalation, the Americans have thrown over a million tons of bombs on North Vietnam, more than those launched on Germany during World War II. A country whose 200 million people spend more on wrapping paper than 500 million Indians spend on food has many resources to give its army. Every morning in the gulf of Tonkin, the aircraft carriers of the 7th Fleet are filled with bombs. It’s a war of the rich. On the other side, it’s the war of the poor, that of 17 million North Vietnamese and their compatriots in the South who fight for their independence. They are the poorest but not the weakest. They are the least in number, but not the most alone.”

Still from the film showing Vietnamese soldiers.

The contrast described here is even more striking in the images: the US, armed with boats filled with rows of bombs, dominates the hostile environment of the sea with metallic and mechanized power. After this shot, the Vietnamese blend into the fields with their clothes covered with leaves, trying to use their surroundings as an advantage. The message is clear: the scale of the war is not balanced. But the stakes are where the true fundamental unfairness of the war lies, as stated shortly after the previous quote: North Vietnam fights to claim “the right of the poor to create, for progress, a society based on something besides the interests of the rich,” whereas the US fight to “show the world that revolutionary struggle is a dead end.”

The disparity of resources, which emphasizes the cruelty of the one-sided aggression, is illustrated by Joris Ivens, who had just released an acclaimed documentary on North Vietnam at the time, in several chapters of the film. In the first chapter, entitled ‘Bomb Hanoi,’ he shows footage of the shelters people in Hanoi have learned to develop in response to the incessant bombing. Buried along the roads, the cement tubes were mass-produced using casts in wooden molds, designed to be accessible shelters that civilians could find easily and quickly in case of sudden raids. Ivens captured the unexpected serenity found on Hanoi streets, acknowledging that “by living with them, one becomes calm like them. And certain of victory.” The unbothered will is poignant, even more so when one realizes that this is the calm before the storm, which is the next shot. The loud sounds of the sirens interrupt the tranquil atmosphere, and everybody seeks refuge in the shelters. And yet, amid this chaos, some are still confidently walking through the streets.

Boys playing beside solo sidewalk bomb shelters, Old Quarter, Sommer Mark, May 1968.

The original footage captured by Ivens shows the power imbalance, like a modern David and Goliath. Even though the opposition has overwhelming power, resilience is the key to victory. The parallel with the myth is pushed even further by the voice-over: “On the American side, the same ignorance of the adversary. American society has a principle: the poorest is always the least equipped. Poverty can be the basis of moral strength superior to the rich aggressor and America doesn't understand this.”

War as a spark of polarized reactions

To emphasize how the conflict was relevant to citizens around the globe, Loin du Vietnam features footage from outside Vietnam. William Klein effectively offers a perspective of the war by manifesting it through people’s emotions. A renowned street photographer, he adopted direct cinema aesthetics, which entail hand-held cameras and portable sound systems to capture the raw emotions in different live demonstrations.

William Klein

As the only US citizen of the group at the time, Klein had the opportunity to travel there to film without being asked too many questions. His footage of the demonstration on Wall Street on May 1, featured in the second chapter entitled ‘A Parade Is a Parade,’ offers nuanced perspectives to the project. It was originally an anti-war parade in the famous New York financial district, as can be read on the signs of demonstrators walking the picket line: “The rich get richer, you get drafted.” But Klein goes further, and true to direct cinema’s aim to represent reality, he stands in between the demonstrators and the crowd of traders gathered for the occasion, who boo the protesters before screaming “Bomb Hanoi” in unison.

More than just a figure behind the camera filming both sides, Klein was also an instigator, provoking heated debates, as shown in the last chapter of the movie called ‘Vertigo,’ which focuses on the famous parade led by Martin Luther King on April 15, 1967. This was one of the biggest demonstrations for peace, gathering more than half a million people from various socioeconomic backgrounds to march from Central Park to the United Nations. This variety gave the director room to spark discussions, some of which were very heated. Klein decried the war through the initiation of debates, trusting that, because the war is so unjustified and absurd, his ideas would eventually prevail.

Photo shown in the movie, taken during the April 15, 1967 anti-war demonstration in New York.

Manichean war in a complex world

While it’s represented as an unjust American intervention against the self-determination of the Vietnamese people, this war is embedded in a complex geopolitical situation. The film acknowledges this history in the didactic fifth chapter, ‘Flash Back,’ which starts with the First Indochina War. The chapter doesn’t shy away from how French colonialism precipitated and contributed to the US’s imperialist involvement. The parallel between those two imperial aggressions is shown historically: documentary footage and a voice-over bring up important moments of colonial history in Vietnam, but end up in comic strips fighting each other. This technique is clearly inspired by the Situationists, whose influence was at its peak at the time of the movie. The Situationists were a political group merging avant-garde artists and far-left militants. Their particular aesthetic, called le détournement, involves using footage of comics, ads and movies and changing the context to protest against capitalist societies and the effects of over-consumerism.

Situationist International using the détournement, text by Raoul Vaneigem and image by André Bertrand, 1967. Sarcastic comic image used to address culture as a commercial product in capitalists societies.

This connection to a niche political movement serves as a reminder that the movie is directed by a group of French intellectuals and self-described Marxists outside of the general public. While their perspectives represented an undeniable part of the western opinion on the American War, they didn't reflect the whole of it. Most of this group was already against imperialism during the era of French colonization and the First Indochina War. Amongst the average French layperson, anti-war views only started becoming more popular during the decades of the American War in Vietnam.

In January 1948, a survey included the question “What were the most important events of 1947?” and so few French respondents were aware of the Indochina War that it was grouped in the “Other” category — which amounted to 6%. In 1966, however, when queried about the American involvement in Vietnam, 41% of the people disapproved, four times higher than the 10% that showed approval.

The film becomes more ambiguous in Alain Resnais’ chapter ‘Claude Ridder,’ which portrays a fictional French bourgeois intellectual performing a long monologue about his struggle to support Vietnamese people. This character, meant to be despised, speaks his mind in brutal honesty about his contradictory feelings. He’d love to support the Vietnamese people wholeheartedly, but cannot fully put himself in their shoes. For example, he explains his turmoil about the war by drawing an inevitable connection with his past experience in World War II as a member of the Resistance against Nazis:

“The Germans were monsters, no visceral problems. I still feel a kind of animal panic when I hear German spoken. Then I remember the last days when suddenly, near a small village, we ran into an American armored division. The Jeeps, the heavy artillery, the tanks, chewing gum, 1944. We were rather happy to see them arrive. After all, we had no ammunition, I owe the Americans my life. I will always love them. Until the end of time, I’ll continue to kill Germans and love Americans. Except the Americans are the Germans of the Vietnamese. Everything gets complicated.”

A still from the ‘Claude Ridder’ chapter showing Alain Resnais’s fictional character, who can also be found in his movie Je t’aime, je t’aime (1968).

He feels that, as a French person, it’s almost hypocritical to protest after the long history of colonization, that it’s futile to just “protest” from the other side of the world, while people give their lives in battle. He also feels that it's reductive to focus on the Vietnam War while a lot of other people also face violence and aggression. All of this piles up into an overwhelming sense of being ill-equipped to address the issue that his intellectual morals can’t disregard, and creates visible uneasiness towards a situation that should be simple.

This character can be seen as a fictional mirror of the directors, and a stand-in to voice their dilemma: they want to capture the war truthfully, but in order to do this, they need to take a step back and look at themselves picturing the war.

Letting the war ‘invade’ us

The fictional representation of bad faith created by Resnais raises the question of the role of the outsiders, full of their own biases, in a war, and how art can tackle the complex subject. This necessity in maintaining a critical distance to wonder about the role of everyone in the conflict is what leads to the deepest layer of the movie. Godard tries to answer this question in a chapter called ‘Camera Eye,' where we can exclusively hear him reflect. The footage feels at first even more off topic: it is mostly him behind a huge camera, and we almost can’t even see his face. The topic is clear: as a French director, why is it important to protest against the American war in Vietnam?

Jean-Luc Godard

Godard begins his monologue with what he would have filmed, if he could have gone there: he wanted to describe how a cluster bomb impacts a naked body or the effect of defoliation on humans, and more. However, the director was not able to go there to execute these ideas; he tells us he asked Hanoi for authorization, but was refused. He is very humble about it, yet we can feel a touch of pain while he explains that he agrees with this refusal, because his ideology was still vague, and more than anything, falsely generous. It cannot come from the bottom of his heart, as he hadn’t experienced it: “It seemed difficult to address certain topics, to speak of bombs when they don’t fall on your head.”

Building on this idea, he chose to “let Vietnam invade us.” This means seeing it as a symbol, “Vietnam” here is not the country, but a more general image of resistance. The “invasion” means realizing the importance of the conflict, and that it’s not alone. Many other countries are facing imperialism, and Vietnam is a synonym of resistance when the director quotes Castro about the importance to “create two, three, many Vietnams.” It also implies creating a Vietnam inside each one of us, and resisting the oppression that applies to us: for Godard, it was against the economics and aesthetics of American cinema which he deemed to have corrupted the global cinema landscape. As a cineast, he viewed “being invaded by Vietnam” also to involve talking about it and picturing it in movies. Which is why he told us about mentioning Vietnam in his other works, to diffuse Vietnam — the symbol of resistance.

Fan footage of a Fidel Castro interview used in the movie.

This movie is 11 chapters long and offers many different perspectives on one of the most prominent conflicts of the century. Its original run in the few cinemas that agreed to screen it was cut short by protests orchestrated by an armed far-right group, followed by numerous bomb threats. Since Loin du Vietnam was restored about 10 years ago, the film has remained under the radar, almost impossible to watch. Now, 60 years after it first aired, the war in Vietnam has been extensively covered in media products from a wide range of sources. However, the clarion call against aggression in Loin du Vietnam is just as relevant today as it was in 1967. More than a simple documentary about the Vietnam War, it provides deep reflections into global oppression and how its affect our society at large.

Loin du Vietnam (Far From Vietnam) is available for viewing in full on YouTube.

Review: Quán Kỳ Nam Is an Instant Classic of Contemporary Vietnamese Cinema

2025-12-07T10:00:00+07:00

Quán Kỳ Nam is a cozy, languorous film that might elude some viewers who don’t have the patience to sit around sipping on tea while waiting for hoa quỳnh to blossom. Still, just like waiting for those petals to unfurl, if you manage to sit still until the end, the result is a tender beauty whose scent will linger on even after the flower is gone.

At Saigoneer, we have published quite a number of collections featuring old photos of Saigon, but my personal favorites are always the works of Japanese photographer Doi Kuro. In the 1990s, Doi traveled across the length of Vietnam, hitting all the iconic tourist towns and capturing street scenes on his film camera. The results are vibrant, lively, candid, saturated shots that encapsulate everything I love about the rhythms of life in the country.

Memories of 1980s Saigon in technicolor

Watching Quán Kỳ Nam feels a lot like a perusing a flipbook animation of Doi’s images, it’s a joy to see the characters on the streets interact with the rich universe in popping colors. The film is director Leon Quang Le’s second after Song Lang (2018), with a script penned by Leon and veteran writer Nguyễn Thị Minh Ngọc. The plot follows Khang (Liên Bỉnh Phát), a translator from Đà Lạt who moves into an old tenement in 1980s Saigon while working on a new Vietnamese-language version of the French classic Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince). His life in the apartment block starts intersecting with its many residents, including Kỳ Nam (Đỗ Thị Hải Yến), a widow with a complicated past who runs a kitchen providing monthly meals to locals.

The movie poster.

Despite major developments in visual effects and production design, Vietnam’s cinema industry in the past decade remains hampered by weak scripts, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Quán Kỳ Nam is an uncommon outlier excelling in both. The plot is rather uneventful and mainly spends time fleshing out the dynamics and relationships between the tenement’s inhabitants, but what the film might lack in adrenaline, it more than makes up for in a level of intentionality and nuance that’s rarely seen in local productions.

Old-fashioned objects, like these colorful agar cakes, are replicated for the movie.

Quán Kỳ Nam’s intentionality shines through in the way it meticulously tries to depict Saigon not merely as a backdrop, but a living entity that exists whether the main characters are there or not. In the film’s Saigon ecosystem, secondhand electronic collectors roam tenement corridors and belt out their unique street calls, rustic coffee vendors dole out cà phê đá in plastic bags, and cinema-goers bemoan Soviet flicks being interrupted by reel delivery delays, and more! The version of retro Saigon in Quán Kỳ Nam is perhaps the most faithfully and obsessively recreated to date, having brought to life with surgical precision.

Interior details of Luyến (left) and Hạo (right)'s homes.

There are about a dozen of characters in the ensemble cast, but no one feels gratuitous or one-dimensional; they come to life with clear motives, backgrounds, and personality quirks that will quickly endear them to viewers. The three breakout stars are Luyến (Ngô Hồng Ngọc), a coquettish tailor who relocated from the north to Saigon with her brother; Su (Trần Thế Mạnh), a biracial teenager helping out Kỳ Nam at her kitchen while struggling with being bullied for having a white father; and Hạo (Lê Văn Thân), an elderly traditional medicine practitioner with a penchant for bird-keeping and then-scandalous bolero music.

Bà Bằng (left) and Su (right) are fantastic additions to the tenement's crop of characters.

In Leon and Ngọc’s script, everybody speaks with an accent and cadence fitting of their regional and social background, and uses phrases that don’t stray far from the kind of natural banters one might eavesdrop in Chợ Lớn. Even though they are built from existing archetypes, each supporting character is well-written and -acted, breathing life to a vivid vintage Saigon diorama that, at times, can even outshine the main leads.

An old-fashioned, life-enduring genre of courtship

The central emotional anchor of Quán Kỳ Nam is the budding romantic tension between Khang and Kỳ Nam, who are both good people played by excellent actors, but admittedly a little boring to watch. Kỳ Nam marks Đỗ Thị Hải Yến’s return to cinema after 10 years, and she has once again demonstrated a sterling ability to communicate entire stories with just a glance. Kỳ Nam might seem perpetually melancholy and reserved, but viewers will eventually discover the many tragic layers underneath that sadness, all maneuvered with aplomb by Yến.

Đỗ Thị Hải Yển plays a widow with a tragic backstory.

Liên Bỉnh Phát’s performance as the mild-mannered and bookish Khang is serviceable at best, but it’s not his fault that he wasn’t given much to work with, not to mention that he’s just a smidgen too in shape to play a 1980s translator convincingly — don’t tell me that those forearms were the result of typewriter usage. Apart from a love for literature and a seemingly bottomless reserve of altruism, Khang appears one-note when compared with the building’s very memorable other tenants. The only thing that saves Khang from dissolving into the plaster walls is his brotherly friendship with Su. Their interactions bring a lot of depth to both Khang and Su and are heart-warming to see.

Even as I’m writing this review, I am still at war with myself on whether Khang and Kỳ Nam’s lack of chemistry is a feature or a bug. When put into the context of 1980s Vietnam, their relationship seems star-crossed in every sense of the word except literal as it’s severely hampered by political and social taboos: Khang hails from a long line of revolutionist government workers while Kỳ Nam married a military officer of the previous regime; Khang is a single young man, and in the cruel eyes of 1980s Vietnam’s society, Kỳ Nam is essentially “damaged goods” as a widow; not to mention the huge age gap between them.

After Kỳ Nam injures her wrist, Khang insists on helping out with cooking. This draws them closer together.

In spite of every hindering circumstance, they share an astounding level of intellectual chemistry and are compatible in both life philosophy and treatment of people. Kỳ Nam’s childhood in a French-language school allows her to immediately appreciate the translation work that Khang is undertaking, and he gets her Albert Camus reference right away. His core value as a person is sympathy and kindness, qualities that she also demonstrates when she sneakily helps the mice in mousetraps escape the tenement’s ruthless hunt. Besides, over the course of the film, Kỳ Nam, Khang, and Su form a found family over the kitchen’s daily operations, giving us a feverish glimpse into a fictional future when they all make a home together.

This makes Khang and Kỳ Nam’s lukewarm romantic chemistry a little disappointing, because I was so rooting for them to… just do something. There are meaningful glances, unsaid confessions, and even a non-sexual all-nighter, but they mostly seem uneasy and guarded. Their interactions are understandably chaste in public because of the numerous social constraints of the society at the time, but even in private, the pair is surprisingly demure. This awkwardness culminates in a peck on the lips behind closed doors that feels, to me, like watching your aunt and uncle kiss. Liên Bỉnh Phát had better chemistry with Isaac in Song Lang, and their characters don’t even kiss.

The couple's courtship might seem tame for today's standards, but is typical of the time period they live in.

And yet, seeing Kỳ Nam and Khang’s romance unfold on screen reminds me a lot of the courtship of my parents’ generation, a time when a passing glance or platonic lunch together could inspire decades of handwritten letters and a lifetime of yearning. The kind of love composers penned songs about and writers reference in novels, like Hiền and Vọi in Khái Hưng’s Trống Mái or Trịnh Công Sơn’s love letters to Dao Ánh. I wonder if I’ve been too desensitized by my generation’s liberal and rather blasé attitude towards romance that I’m lambasting their soulful, intellectually attuned connection for being too restrained. The bottom line is you can decide for yourself whether you can resonate with their love story, if you manage to catch the film when it’s still in theater, which, I suspect, won’t be long.

An instant classic of contemporary Vietnamese cinema

Quán Kỳ Nam’s straightforward storyline will be easy to grasp for just about any viewer, but as a whole, it is not a film for everybody. Contemplating and reminiscing are not activities the average Vietnamese viewer today is dying to do during a movie-going experience, but if you have lived through the period of Saigon’s growing pains depicted on screen, the film is a heartfelt tribute to a version of our lives that we perhaps are not yearning to relive, but nonetheless, hold a lot of affection for. Additionally, you will be able to appreciate the film more if you come with some basic knowledge of Saigon’s modern history, which, I would argue, is necessary to understand the actions and emotions of the characters — why Su is mercilessly picked on by the kids over his American parentage, and his own path to reunion; why Kỳ Nam’s family situation inspired much malicious gossips; and the diverse ethnic and social dynamics of the tenement.

Every background in the movie is crafted with great attention to details.

Ultimately, to enjoy Quán Kỳ Nam, you must be at peace with slowness. The film unapologetically celebrates and rewards patience, from placing a slow-burning romance at its heart to featuring many activities that famously take a lot of time: translating a book, making pork floss, and, my favorite, watching the nocturnal hoa quỳnh bloom in the evening. I knew from the moment I stepped out of the cineplex that Quán Kỳ Nam would perform poorly at the box office — it is objectively a great film, but it only seeks the appreciative eyes of a specific few.

All told, I am not too sad over the Quán Kỳ Nam’s imminent departure from local cineplexes, because I fully believe that the film will find its own audience in due time via other platforms, as an instant classic in the collective works of contemporary Vietnamese cinema. Saigon and our lives might drastically change every decade, but these snapshots of the past remain untainted, as does our fondness for them.

Photos via Facebook page Quán Kỳ Nam.

Liên Bỉnh Phát Makes History as 1st Vietnamese to Win Best Male Lead in Taiwan

2025-10-27T11:00:00+07:00

Vietnamese actor Liên Bỉnh Phát recently made history at one of Taiwan’s most prestigious national award ceremonies.

On October 18, Taiwan held the 60^th Golden Bell Awards, an annual award organized by the Ministry of Culture to honor outstanding television and radio productions, often considered the Taiwanese equivalent to the Emmy Awards. According to Vietnam News, Liên Bỉnh Phát clinched the Golden Bell Award for Best Male Lead in a Television Series for his role in the medical drama The Outlaw Doctor. This is the first time a Vietnamese actor has been bestowed this honor in the award’s history.

In The Outlaw Doctor, Phát plays Phạm Văn Ninh, a licensed plastic surgeon in Vietnam who carries out illegal procedures in Taiwan for migrant workers to make money to cover his own mother’s medical treatment. Liên Bỉnh Phát was lauded by critics for his nuanced portrayal of a complex character that straddles many boundaries, from morality, language to, at times, literal life and death.

At the award ceremony, the actor wore an orange áo dài as he gave his acceptance speech: “On receiving the award, Phát said: "I see this as a reward for my long journey and for everyone who has always believed in and supported me. More than anything, I feel a greater responsibility as a Vietnamese artist to share our stories and spirit with the world.”

He added that he would donate half his prize to a fund aiming to provide assistance to migrant workers in Taiwan, who are likely to face situations that his character and those he operated on in the TV series have been through.

Liên Bỉnh Phát rose to fame in Vietnam after landing the lead role in the film Song Lang (dir. Leon Quang Lê, 2018), playing a gruff debt collector with a heart of gold. Before winning the Golden Bell this year, Phát also won the Tokyo Gemstone Award in the Best Newcomer category of Tokyo International Film Fest 2018 for his role in Song Lang.

Watch Liên Bỉnh Phát's acceptance speech below:

Top photo via Tai Sounds.

Women in Post-Đổi Mới Vietnamese Cinema: From Archetypal to Multifaceted

2025-10-19T10:00:00+07:00

In Vietnamese cinema, the female figure has long been employed to deliver macro-level messages rather than just mundane narratives.

The period from 1975 to 1986 marked a major transition in the history of local cinema. According to Lịch sử Điện ảnh Việt Nam (The History of Vietnam Cinema) by playwright Nguyễn Thị Hồng Ngát, this era saw a shift from propaganda productions to more realist films and projects with mass appeal. After đổi mới, local filmmakers have created compelling characters in roles like grandmas, mothers, and sisters to symbolize the resilience and courage of Vietnamese people as they adapted to the nation’s economic, cultural, and social changes.

The ups and downs of a nascent cinematic industry

In 1986, Vietnam transformed from a planned economy to a market economy, bringing about numerous shifts in the lives of citizens. Cinema was one of the mass communication mediums that strikingly reflected these transformations. If the colonial decades gave rise to documentaries and shorts, cinema projects during the rise of socialism in northern Vietnam ushered in some novelty.

Still, the majority of films then were still revolving around war times, labor, and manufacturing, such as Vợ chồng A Phủ (1961), Chị Tư Hậu (1963), Vĩ tuyến 17 ngày và đêm (1972), Em bé Hà Nội (1974), etc. This period gave us a number of talented filmmakers, even though film productions were tightly regulated in both content and execution by the Department of Cinema.

Chị Tư Hậu (1963).

In the south, though there were war-themed movies, like Từ Sài Gòn đến Điện Biên Phủ (1970), the cinematic landscape comprised broader genres like comedies, including Tứ quái Sài Gòn (1973) and Năm vua hề về làng (1974); and romantic dramas like Chân trời tím (1971) and Sau giờ giới nghiêm (1972). In 1975, a range of subjects were featured in local films, even though the most popular titles were mostly war-related, like Mối tình đầu (1977), Mẹ vắng nhà (1979) and Cánh đồng hoang (1979).

Following đổi mới, the market economy resulted in a boom in commercial films, most notably the advent of “mì ăn liền” (instant noodles) projects. These low-stake, accessible, cheaply produced, and easy-to-watch flicks became considerably popular, leading to the rise of Vietnam’s first generation of movie stars like Lý Hùng, Thu Hà, Diễm Hương, and Việt Trinh. Towards the end of the 1990s, the genre lost its mass appeal as art house flicks and foreign collaborations arrived. Projects about Vietnam but helmed by foreign auteurs of Vietnamese descent — such as Trần Anh Hùng (The Scent of Green Papaya) and Tony Bùi (Three Seasons) — were recognized by international film festivals.

“A mother, a wife, a soldier”

The Nguyễn Dynasty, Vietnam’s last period under absolute monarchy, was significantly influenced by Confucianism in how it governed the country. The spread of Confucius teachings became less influential the more southward one moved. Australian historian Barbara Watson Andaya, whose research centers on women’s history in Southeast Asia, wrote that Vietnam during this era wasn’t just dominated by patriarchal beliefs, so matriarchal orders were still followed, and the role of the woman was still respected.

Bao giờ cho đến tháng Mười (1963).

Films that came out before đổi mới often chose to elevate the role of women through their wartime contributions. In these cases, women were both brave fighters on the battlefield and dependable support behind the scenes. Standout characters included the mother and sister figures in Mẹ vắng nhà (1979), Em bé Hà Nội (1974) and Bao giờ cho đến tháng Mười (1984).

The majority of female characters featured in movies of this period were involved in the revolution, like those in Đến hẹn lại lên (dir. Trần Vũ, 1974) and Cánh đồng hoang (dir. Vương Hồng Sến, 1979). Many of these were well-received when sent to film festivals organized by the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, besides being celebrated for their war utility, motherhood and sisterhood, few female roles could escape their main use: to consolidate and promote wartime paradigms.

More resources but less mental freedom?

From đổi mới onwards, the role of Vietnamese women in film expanded from just revolutionary icons or reminders of a time of loss and trauma. They started taking on new purposes to reflect the hopes, personal ambitions and new image of the nation in a new age.

The economic reform in 1986 gave way to private enterprises. Women could return to markets to open stores, bringing about the development of street vendors and family businesses operated by female members of the household. Private companies and foreign-invested firms also helped increase gender equality in the workforce. There was a noticeable increase in the number of young women living in urban areas with a stable career. They were afforded more freedom in their choices of entertainment and socialization compared to the previous generation.

An artwork at the exhibition “Đổi Mới - The Journey of Dreams” as seen at the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum in 2016.

Nonetheless, in her article “Gender in Post-Doi Moi Vietnam: Women, desire, and change,” human geographer Lisa Drummond pointed out that even though the economic reform ushered in many changes in the life of Vietnamese women, it also accentuated gender issues that have long been present in the culture. Cultural gender norms and chauvinistic traits in the local society couldn’t be toppled in a day, even though they weren’t as ingrained as before.

During this period, the Vietnamese woman always felt she had to balance between traditional expectations and contemporary ambitions. She had to maneuver the family’s urge for a firstborn son in response to the state’s family planning policies, hide their sexual needs amid the morally oppressive climate of rural Vietnam, while harboring hopes for a better working environment and living condition in the new era of the market economy.

Private and reticent, but not losing their voice

These gender issues were depicted quite prominently in Cô gái trên sông (dir. Đặng Nhật Minh, 1987) and Mùi đu đủ xanh (dir. Trần Anh Hùng, 1993). How these cinematic works portrayed male-female dynamics and relationships between characters showed that gender norms were very clearly defined in our collective minds. As such, men are defined by powerful personae who are intelligent but irresponsible; while women are modest, reserved, faithful and selfless.

Đặng Nhật Minh is amongst the directors who contributed the most to the growth of Vietnamese cinema. As an auteur, he expressed much sympathy for Vietnamese women. After it was released, Cô gái trên sông faced significant censure to the point of nearly getting banned from screening, as it was deemed to be too “tarnishing” to the image of the soldier.

Cô gái trên sông pushed to topple long-established beliefs about women, how they love, and how they express that love.

A realist take on the war genre, Cô gái trên sông caused an uproar due to how it presented the revolutionist soldier as a player, and showed compassion for the main character, a sex worker. The synopsis revolves around Nguyệt, a prostitute living on a boat on the Hương River, and her quest to find a soldier whom she saved from enemy pursuit. When peace is achieved, she hopes to reunite with him, but her dream is shattered when that man, now a high-ranking official, completely brushes aside their connection.

In Cô gái trên sông, Nguyệt’s boldness proved the production’s push to dethrone long-established beliefs about women, how they love, and how they express that love. Besides, its portrayal of the revolutionary soldier as a heartbreaker and one from across the enemy line was faithful and provided a refreshing perspective for cinema at the time, especially when compared to the propaganda films of past centuries. Over the span of his career, even though the majority of Minh’s films were supported by the government, he found ways to edge by, expressing a strong personal voice and airing out his concerns for the country and its people.

Two of this works received support from the British and Japanese governments, respectively: Trở về (1994) and Thương nhớ đồng quê (1996). Both chronicle the journeys of women amid the nation’s cultural shifts in the market economy: urban women have access to spaces to unwind, socialize, and meet new people, enjoying a rich social life; while rural women lack opportunities to expand their social circles. Most of them were confined by strict moral codes and heavy expectations from society to fulfill their predestined roles as wives and mothers.

Mùi đu đủ xanh is a story about the passions and desires of women.

After 1986, Vietnam’s reopening to the world resulted in a number of cinematic works by foreign directors of Vietnamese descent being introduced to local watchers. Most notably, there was Mùi đu đủ xanh (1993), Trần Anh Hùng’s first-ever long feature. It became his most critically acclaimed work of the decade, clinching many international nominations and accolades.

Surrounding Trần Anh Hùng’s oeuvre, debates about “traditions” and “identities” seem never-ending. In Mùi đu đủ xanh, he portrayed an archetypal Vietnamese family, its time-honored customs, and palpable patriarchy via the role of the oldest son in the household. These family hierarchies were deeply entrenched in the minds of female characters, be it in the city or the countryside.

Trần Anh Hùng’s Mùi đu đủ xanh is a distinctively Asian love story — right beside the devotion of the woman lies the void of the man in the family. The plot follows Mùi, a young girl who moves to Saigon to be a live-in maid for a family of northern descent. Mùi, with her deep sensitivity, can detect the cracks and trauma in a seemingly harmonious household.

The mother and the grandma both have to endure the indifference and coldness of the family’s patriarchs. Their efforts and subtle sacrifices remain unsung. Even Mùi, when it comes to her own love journey, chooses to blend in the shadow, taking care of the one she loves from afar, as there’s already a fiance beside him, who’s superior to her in both appearance and poise.

The Asian woman’s affection is juxtaposed with the passion of western expressions of love.

In the movie, the Asian woman’s affection is juxtaposed with the passion of western expressions of love. It highlights how Mùi slowly overcomes the gender hurdles a rural woman often faces to step into the world of her crush, who was educated in the west and deeply influenced by its open lifestyle. In general, with the addition of diasporic films, especially those of Trần Anh Hùng, women in Vietnamese cinema after đổi mới became more multifaceted — at times, still modest, reserved, and obedient, but also strong-willed, progressive, and assertive when it comes to their own existence in the society.

The country shifts when women shift

In addition to highlighting gender issues of the Vietnamese society at the time, filmmakers also imbued their aspirations about the future of the country through women’s individual dreams. Two features that exemplified this trait were Lưỡi dao (dir. Lê Hoàng, 1995) and Ba mùa (dir. Tony Bùi, 1999).

Lưỡi dao came out during the apex of Lê Hoàng’s career, according to many critics. The film is set in 1975 in southern Vietnam, following the life of Nguyệt. After her family perishes during the war, Nguyệt comes to detest the revolutionary army. As her suspicion and fear abate through time, she discovers a shocking truth that forces her to choose between romance and honor. This character is a strong symbol of the efforts to heal wartime wounds, erasing decades of vengefulness that once plagued the nation.

Nguyệt is a strong symbol for the efforts to heal wartime wounds, erasing decades of vengefulness that once plagued the nation.

Meanwhile, Ba mùa, a feature film by Vietnamese American director Tony Bùi, sets up a Vietnamese landscape that’s admittedly quite romanticized, but still carries the spirits of the era. Released three years after the sanctions on Vietnam were lifted, it tells the stories of different female characters living in Saigon during this opening of the economy.

Ba mùa delivers segments that are colorful and sensitive to the intersection of old and new, traditions and modernity. Each woman in the movie represents a different value. Lan, a sex worker, seeks a wealthy life, trying her best to not repeat her mother’s miserable fate; she represents career ambitions and the preservation of youth. An, who was hired to pick lotus blossoms, touches the heart of her leprosy-stricken employer with her singing; she represents Asian intangible values, much like the pristine lotus that she collects.

Lan and An both strive for change, hopes, and the dream to continue living even after hurt and destitution.

If Lan is modern, pragmatic, and quick to leave behind the traditional mindset, An is a traditional woman, symbolizing the dissection of the old orders. Even though they come from different castes of society and make different choices, they both strive for change, hopes, and the dream to continue living even after hurt and destitution — just like how Vietnam was trying step by step to overcome an embattled history and its consequences to turn a new leaf.

Decades after đổi mới, these cinematic works are still recognized by the public and critics as the golden age of Vietnamese cinematic history. Their creators deftly brought the female figure out of revolutionary cinema’s entrenched archetypes. They supported female characters’ rights to live with their own concerns, issues, and dreams, ultimately painting a picture of a growing Vietnam amid a new era’s attitudes, standards, and refreshing perspectives about women.

'Lẽ Sống' Documentary Celebrates Strength, Resilience of Mekong Delta Women

2025-09-23T13:00:00+07:00

Sometimes, just surviving is remarkable.

The short documentary, Lẽ Sống, looks closely at what it takes to make a simple, honest living in the Mekong Delta and posits that the resilience and sacrifices of the region's women foster hope for society's future.

Lẽ Sống focuses on the daily lives of two women in Vĩnh Long Province: Nhã, a single mother who provides for her daughter by running a phở restaurant; and Thuý, a businesswoman who sells fish in the local market. Both invite the filmmakers to their homes and places of work, where they offer matter-of-fact descriptions of their daily routines, past struggles, motivations, and aspirations for their families.

The details Nhã and Thuý share about shrewd business practices, admiration for education and family, endurance in the face of poverty, and communal kindness resonate because the views represent those of many women in the Mekong Delta, and Vietnam generally. Certainly, we all have friends, neighbors, relatives or simply familiar faces in our neighborhood who have similar experiences. But it's not often we encounter such open and well-edited portraits. The 14 minutes we spend with the two women affords viewers a chance to understand better the commonplace actions that aren't often dwelt upon but reveal a strength worth celebrating.

The film is the passion project of Huy Phạm and Mike Abela, made for no money beyond the daily logistics budget. The pair of California-based friends have done similar projects in the past, including 2015 looks at a hột vịt lộn vendor in Saigon and the a woman who sells bún riêu in Cần Thơ's floating market. When sharing their latest work with Saigoneer, Huy noted: “Mike and I used to sit in his apartment watching Anthony Bourdain and wishing we could go to Vietnam and do something like that. We enjoy the culture and the people so much.”

Review: Watch a Family's Trauma Unravel in Real Time in 'No Crying at the Dinner Table'

2025-09-06T21:00:00+07:00

I had little to no expectation when I started watching No Crying at the Dinner Table, especially since the topic of generational distance in Vietnam has been discussed time and time again by many other media, including Bố Già and Nhà Bà Nữ, both feature films by Trấn Thành.

As a Vietnamese who has experienced emotional silence in my own family, I was concerned that the film wouldn’t do it justice due to its simplistic formula, where, aside from the silent daily-life scenes, nearly all scenes with dialogue are filmed at a dinner table. However, my initial skepticism was dispelled after I actually watched the documentary and saw how raw the portrayal of unspoken grief, trauma, and emotional vulnerability was.

No Crying at the Dinner Table is a 16-minute documentary directed by Carol Nguyen, a Vietnamese-Canadian filmmaker whose filmography often focuses on family, emotional silence, and cultural identity. Most of her films are well-received by the public and critically acclaimed, with No Crying receiving the “Jury Prize for Short Documentary” at South by Southwest, as well as becoming one of the official selections to be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2019.

In the film, the main actors are also the director's real-life family.

The film comprises a series of interviews she conducted alone with her father, mother, and sister about their past and their relationship with other family members. Each of the individuals recalls harrowing memories about their loved ones: her mother expresses regret about not being able to be affectionate with her parents before they passed away, her father opens up about his pain of losing his brother to suicide, and her sister shares her lingering sadness about their grandparents’ passing, as well as her distant relationship with her parents. Aside from the interviews, several individual scenes of the family members doing mundane tasks, such as taking a bath or preparing dinner, are shown on screen, and the three only sit together in the final scene.

Behind the shoot at the titular dinner table.

What intrigued me even before I started watching the movie was its title, specifically how it perfectly alluded to one of this documentary’s most omnipresent themes, as stated by Carol Nguyen herself when discussing the movie on her website: the handling of grief. It can be expressed in many different ways, yet crying remains one of the most common manifestations. Meanwhile, the dinner table, where family members gather, is an ideal place for them to share different emotions, including grief. Nevertheless, No Crying highlights the emotional silence within the family that has built up over time and kept the family members absent from each other’s pain.

Grief itself is a peculiar feeling, a mixture of sadness and regret, existing in between the what-have-been-dones and what-could-have-beens; it can stay within us for a long time. Throughout No Crying, grief is explored through all three family members’ stories about their dead loved ones. Each of their stories, though different in context and content, has a similar sense of guilt and regret, a feeling that they could have done something, anything, for their loved ones before losing them forever. While the mother regrets not showing affection to her parents when they were still alive, the father summarizes his story with two words: “guilty forever.” The long-lasting weight of loss and grief is further emphasized in the sister’s story, where, even after years of her grandparents’ passing, she still cries whenever a random fragment of memory about them resurfaces in her mind, and she notes, “I guess you never stop mourning anyway…”

The father.

The sister.

The mother.

Not being able to share their grief with close ones because of generational distance is another level of pain that many families go through, which is observed in this short film. Distance and the unspoken pains this causes are especially evident in the film's non-interview scenes, where each family member, while carrying on with their daily tasks, hardly ever talks to each other. They keep their feelings to themselves, as if there is a huge wall that blocks their emotions and pain from being shown to one another. This distance is not only shown in scene, but its consequences are also underscored in the interviews, where both the mother and the father express regrets of not being closer to their loved ones before they passed or, more lightly, the sister’s early exposure to non-PG materials like the explicit sex scene in Titanic, partially due to her distance from her parents. Nguyen even notes that her family members’ grief and trauma hadn’t been communicated until the making of the documentary.

No Crying at the Dinner Table lived up to its title from the beginning to the middle, where all family members, when together, barely show their emotions on the dinner table. Yet, towards the end of the film, as they listen to each other’s individual interviews, the emotional barriers and distances between them gradually crumble when they hug each other in tears. This powerful moment, when they allow themselves to be vulnerable in front of others, to finally cry at the dinner table, dismantles the title's premise. Although the cycle of emotional distance in the director’s family is far from being fully broken, the documentary allows for a layer of understanding and empathy to develop in the family’s relationships, helping them be more comfortable talking about their hidden emotions and stories.

Carol Nguyen (sitting, second from left) and the crew behind the project.

Carol Nguyen not only tells a beautiful story about grief, generational trauma, and familial distance, but also creates a safe space for her own family to talk through their trauma and pain, thus kickstarting the journey to resolve their own inter-generational issues and wearing down the metaphorical wall between them in the end. Being part of this intimate family journey, even though only through our screens, undoubtedly made many of the film's audience members, including me, tear up. It made me rethink my relationship with my family, recognize their human fallibility, and try to view them through a more sympathetic lens, much like Nguyen’s family in the film. No Crying at the Dinner Table taught me that silence at the dinner table is never fully empty, but can mask a deep sense of grief, pain, isolation, and feelings left unsaid. I began to confront my silence after watching Nguyen’s family confront their own. Perhaps this could be a path that you can take, too, if you’re willing to give this simple yet nuanced documentary a try.

No Crying at the Dinner Table can be viewed in full on Vimeo. Watch the short film below.

The Surprising Japanese Origin Behind the Vietnamese Term 'Ô Sin'

2025-07-21T13:00:00+07:00

It’s not uncommon to come across words in everyday conversations that have roots in the French language. Albeit less frequently, a handful of Russian and English loan words have also made their way into our lives at times, but for a term of Japanese origin to have taken root deep in the collective psyche of Vietnamese, that’s rare.

Ô sin is a common term used to describe domestic helpers in Vietnam, in addition to other words like người giúp việc, người ở, con sen, etc. — each with different degrees of respect. The term originated from a television soap opera that Japanese national broadcaster NHK aired in 1983–1984 by the same name, おしん (Oshin). The series was an epic chronicling the life of the main character Tanokura Shin from when she was born in the late Meiji period to the early 1980s. It was screened in Vietnam for the first time in 1994 on VTV1 and later in 2012 on HTV3.

Oshin is portrayed by three actresses, one for each life stage: Nobuko Otoba (middle-aged to elderly), Yuko Tanaka (adult), and Ayako Kobayashi (adolescent).

Throughout the 297 episodes of the series, Oshin’s life was marked by extreme hardships and poverty, especially during her childhood when she worked as a servant for two different families. These rather traumatizing events contributed greatly to the adaptation of her name in Vietnamese as a shorthand for servitude. During a decade with scant entertainment options, whatever was shown on state TV would inevitably become a national phenomenon, so Oshin became ô sin.

It’s interesting to note the differences in cultural impact Oshin had on two countries, though the series was widely popular in both. The Japanese practice of adding o (お) to a person’s name started from the Muromachi period (1336–1573) to show respect and politeness, so right from the series name, Oshin is already established to be a revered figure. In Japan, Oshin is often seen as a symbol of resilience and courage, and the “Oshin diet” refers to a period of economic downturn in the 1980s, when Japanese had to make do with eating rice with daikon. In Vietnam, however, the connotation of “ô sin” has gradually skewed negative over time, and is most often used in either humorous or derogatory contexts today.

Top photo via Sankei.

Remembering Thuy Trang, the First Vietnamese Power Ranger

2025-07-17T11:00:00+07:00

It was the late 1990s, and I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror of our childhood home, holding my dad’s solid-metal belt buckle up with a pseudo-serious expression on my baby face. Fortunately, I wasn’t doing a YouTuber-style makeup review, but was in fact mirroring the transformation sequence of my favorite TV idols, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Power Rangers are known in Vietnamese as “Siêu nhân,” and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (5 Anh Em Siêu Nhân) was the first-ever English-language iteration of the long-enduring franchise that spawned numerous sequels from east to west. It was also my first and only brush with Siêu nhân, as Pokémon and Disney would arrive soon after, taking over my entire childhood and leaving little time for intergalactic crime fighting.

Created by a pair of Israeli entertainment producers after they came across its Japanese predecessor, Mighty Morphin premiered in 1993 with a cast of relatively unknown newcomers and a lot of doubts that America would take well to the violent nature of spacefaring fights. According to the plot, five high schoolers in California were given the ability to transform into Power Rangers, a team of superhuman soldiers tasked with protecting Earth against alien villains. Apart from a few racially insensitive casting decisions — Thuy Trang, of Asian descent, was given the role of the Yellow Ranger, while Walter Emanuel Jones, who is African American, plays the Black Ranger — the series was an instant hit across North America and even internationally.

The opening sequence of the first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, released in 1993.

Thuy Trang was born in 1973 in Saigon, but migrated to the US with her mother when she was five or six on a cargo ship via Hong Kong. It’s also important to note that Trang was her surname and Thuy (diacritic unknown) was her first name. The family eventually reunited with her father and resettled in California in 1980. After graduating from high school, she got a scholarship to study civil engineering in college, but was spotted by a talent scout while hanging out with friends and switched her focus to acting, at least for a while.

Thuy Trang as Trini Kwan, the Yellow Ranger. Photo via BuzzFeed.

Thuy was officially cast as Trini Kwan, the Yellow Ranger in Mighty Morphin in 1993, from a pool of 500 other actresses. The casting process wasn’t race-specific, as Thuy recalled seeing hopeful Trinis from all ethnicities in the room, but little did the production or Thuy Trang know at that point that her role as Trini would turn out to be a groundbreaking role model for millennial Asian Americans during their formative years. The reception of Thuy’s portrayal of Trini was very positive, as she learnt over the course of her tenure at Mighty Morphin that an Asian superhero was an unprecedented point of pride.

“Asians are not portrayed in the media very well, and there are not many roles for Asian people except for the stereotypes — gangsters, hookers, things like that,” Thuy Trang shared in an interview in 1993. “A lot of older Asian people come up to me and say that I'm doing a service to the Asian community.”

Admittedly, primary school me didn’t even realize that she was Vietnamese, or Asian for that matter. The real name of the actress appeared for all of three seconds in the opening sequence, and, as an ethnic Vietnamese born in Vietnam, it wasn’t extraordinary to see an Asian person on screen, because, well, everybody else is Vietnamese on local TV. This undoubtedly wasn’t the case for millennials of Asian, and especially Vietnamese, descent in the US, as they could instantly connect with Thuy Trang’s Yellow Ranger and even her own personal background as a refugee in the US.

A fan art of Trini Kwan by Chris Jones. Image via Reddit/Instagram user @theoriginalmistajonz.

One of them is Chi-Hung Ta, who founded the Thuy Trang Tribute website in 1997. The site, still operational 28 years later, remains the most comprehensive multimedia resource on her to date, even though new materials are understandably scant, considering Thuy Trang had passed away for over 20 years now. “When Mighty Morphin Power Rangers debuted in 1993, I was slightly older than the target audience. But, I watched because of Thuy Trang's portrayal of Trini Kwan, the Yellow Ranger. I recognized Thuy as being Vietnamese, whose immigrant story matched my own,” Chi-Hung writes in the site’s About Us section.

Thuy Trang took over the role from actress Audri Dubois, who played the Yellow Ranger in the pilot, but over the course of 80 episodes of Mighty Morphin across two seasons, she made the role of Trini Kwan her own. Thuy Trang was also an avid athlete and martial artist, having taken up Shaolin Kung Fu since she arrived in the US, and even got a black belt. She was also a forthright young woman who wasn’t afraid to speak out against injustice, and perhaps, it was this bluntness that didn’t sit well with the network executives behind Mighty Morphin.

The original cast in a Japanese promo poster. From top to bottom, clockwise: Jason David Frank (green), David Yost (blue), Austin St. John (red), Amy Jo Johnson (pink), Thuy Trang (yellow), and Walter Emanuel Jones (black). Photo via Henshin Grid.

In 1995, in the middle of the second season of Mighty Morphin, it was announced that Thuy Trang was leaving the show, alongside Austin St. John and Walter Emanuel Jones, who played the Red and Black Rangers, respectively. The reasons given were contract disputes, though we have recently learnt that there were more behind the scenes, thanks to an episode of the docuseries Hollywood Demons, which delved into the seedy underbellying of the film industry.

According to the episode, titled “Dark Side of the Power Rangers,” merely a year after its premiere, Mighty Morphin was already shaping up to be a lucrative cash cow, earning its creators over a billion dollars in just toy sales. The actors, who were relative unknowns at the time of its launch, didn’t see a dime of the merchandise money. The jobs were non-union, and they were reportedly making just US$60,000 per year each, so when their first contract was up mid-season, the three joined forces to negotiate for better pay, a percentage of the toy earnings, and union recognition. “We were broke,” St. John said, detailing the financial pressures of having to take a second job on top of being on a demanding TV production, which was raking in big bucks for the execs.

The transformation sequence of Mighty Morphin.

The disputes reached the climax at a major presentation of FOX, with many of the network’s stakeholders present. Thuy Trang took the stage to deliver a blistering speech, chastising the show owners for failing to fairly compensate the actors while they were the ones anchoring the ratings. The network response was swift and straightforward: all three were fired from the show and instantly replaced. In the Mighty Morphin world, the reason given for the characters’ exit was that the three teens were chosen as representatives in an international “Peace Conference” in Switzerland, and their powers and colored uniforms were passed on to new faces.

One can’t help but wonder if things would have turned out differently had all the actors banded together to foot the demands, something Amy Jo Johnson, who played the Pink Ranger, also regretted not doing. The cast of Friends, another smash hit to have come out of the early 1990s, successfully negotiated increased and equal pay for the six friends, once the show became a household name.

Following Thuy Trang's departure from Mighty Morphin, she only appeared in two other film projects in 1996, and expressed struggles finding roles as an Asian American actress. Those wishful Hollywood aspirations would be shelved forever just a few years later. In 2001, she was in a car with actress Angela Rockwood and another friend, Steffiana de la Cruz, driving between San Jose and Los Angeles. The two girls were to be bridesmaids for Rockwood’s upcoming wedding with Dustin Nguyen. Cruz, the driver, struck some loose gravel and lost control of the car. The accident injured Cruz and rendered Rockwood paraplegic, while Thuy Trang succumbed to fatal injuries on the way to the hospital. She was 28 years old.

Thuy Trang in a promotional shoot for the first season.

Power Rangers have continued to put out successful iterations and introduced new batches of rangers since then, to the point where you can probably guess a new friend’s age by the generation of Power Rangers that they were obsessed with as a child. This ever-churning cycle might be what Thuy Trang and her colleagues didn’t realize at the time when they naively, but rightfully, stuck their neck out to ask for fair pay back then: Power Rangers are replaceable and kids abandon old toys for shiny new ones faster than you can shout “Saber-tooth Tiger! Transform!”

On Thuy Trang’s part, Hollywood might have been quick to replace her for fighting for her deserved compensation, but Vietnamese never forget. She was the first, and for 30 years, only Vietnamese Power Ranger — that is a pretty badass legacy to leave behind. Spoiler alert: the 2023 Netflix special Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always revealed that Trini had a daughter, Minh Kwan, who took over the family business by becoming the Yellow Ranger.

Still, I wish Thuy Trang could be around now to see the 2020s, when the political and social climate, at least in Hollywood, has improved to the point when Asian-led rom-coms and all-Asian ensembles are much more prevalent. Perhaps she could have been the steely mother in Crazy Rich Asians instead of Michelle Yeoh, or the lovestruck sport writer in Set It Up in place of Lucy Liu? Wake me up before I subsume into the reverie of a Thuy Trang renaissance à la Ke Huy Quan's. Thuy Trang was an icon, and may she rest in peace.

The Charming 1990s Nostalgia in the Phim Mì Ăn Liền Cinematic Universe

2025-06-27T11:00:00+07:00

If you lurk around online discussions of Vietnamese cinema, you probably have stumbled upon the term phim mì ăn liền, or “instant noodles films.” This popular Vietnamese expression describes local motion pictures with low-effort production value. But the term is not merely a common moniker. It dates back to the 1990s, when a specific type of commercial flick got audiences flocking to the cinema.

Introduction to phim mì ăn liền

Since initiating economic reforms in 1986, Vietnam experienced major political, societal and cultural changes. This transformation extended to the film industry and Vietnamese cinema. Prior to this era, the state fully subsidized the production and distribution of motion pictures, but state funding for film production declined during the Đổi Mới era, so many film studios struggled to produce feature films with the resources available. More production companies therefore started seeking private investment to stay afloat. This privatization ushered in a new era dominated by commercial films made to generate profits.

In the modern lexicon, “phim mì ăn liền” is often used derogatorily to describe slapdash filmmaking efforts.

Concurrently, technology innovations led to a change in filmmaking methods. After the introduction of VHS tapes, film studios began making shot-on-video films using camcorders, which were cheaper, faster, and easier to produce than traditional film stock recordings.

Đổi Mới also exposed young audience members to foreign pop culture via Hollywood blockbusters, Hong Kong martial arts films and South Korean soap operas. This presented a new challenge for local cinema, as the new generation’s taste in films had changed, and the average watcher's choices were no longer limited to the often war-centric narratives offered during the previous era.

Việt Trinh

Diễm Hương

Lý Hùng

These factors contributed to the emergence of the phim mì ăn liền era of Vietnamese cinema. These 1990s films were made to appeal to the masses, and thus sell more tickets. They were usually made quickly on a small budget and shot on video. The nickname “instant noodles film” was derived from the commonalities between the movies of this era and instant noodles: they were cheap and could be made quickly; they were easy-to-digest and lastly, instant noodles are seen as an affordable meal for when you’re hungry, which parallels how 1990s commercial films came about when audiences were hungry for a newer approach in cinema.

The stratospheric rise and fall of phim mì ăn liền

Moviegoers responded positively to some of the earliest instant noodles films, and many achieved box-office success. An average of 50 feature films were produced every year by the start of the 1990s, giving rise to Vietnam's first generation of movie stars. Thu Hà, one of the rare names from the northern region to find success in mì ăn liền, discusses the popularity of noodle flicks in an interview with VTV: “This type of film was everywhere in theaters. At that time, everywhere we went, the public always knew about it.”

Many photos taken of these actors were printed on calendars, notebook covers, and postcards. These are old artifacts preserved by collector Nguyễn Văn Đương. Photo via Thương Mái Trường Xưa Facebook page.

But the era was short-lived, and by 1994, the genre began to decline with no definitive causes identified. Some theories suggest it was the rapid, negligent filmmaking methods focused on cash-grabbing and the rise of television series that turned watchers' attention elsewhere. Film critic and researcher Ngô Phương Lan noted that the instant noodles flicks “oversaturated” theaters and the audience eventually lost interest due to “the lack of quality in terms of narrative and artistic values.”

After the heyday of phim mì ăn liền, the genre gave way to arthouse films and the resurgence of state-ordered war movies in the 1990s. In retrospect, this era of Vietnamese cinema evoked both negative and positive perceptions. Even today, every once in a while when there is a streak of low-quality domestic releases, the media would use the reference the term “mì ăn liền” to reiterate how the swift production of 1990s noodle films led to their downfall, as a warning to filmmakers.

Still, modern audiences cherish these films and are able to look past their production flaws. Perhaps, the nostalgic feeling of revisiting the A-list actors that they once loved and an increased understanding of the industry’s restraints at the time can make the low-budget craftiness of phim mì ăn liền seem charming to today's viewers.

This era is often credited with introducing fresh narratives and techniques, marking an important stage in the development of the nation's film industry. The 17^th Vietnam Film Festival in 2011 paid tribute to instant noodles cinema in its opening ceremony by including the era’s popular titles in the showcase of Vietnamese Cinema History.

Older Vietnamese might have vague memories of watching these movies, but it has been more than thirty years since the peak of instant noodles cinema. Luckily, thanks to the advent of YouTube, plenty of these 1990s flicks are available online. Given the sheer variety in both number and quality, I thought it would be helpful to look at a few pioneering works, some popular subgenres, a prominent filmmaker along with some wildcards.

1. The pioneers

The foundations of phim mì ăn liền can be attributed to two films. These two works achieved major box office success, and helped inspire and define the genres, tropes, styles, acting and overall feel of the works that followed.

Vị Đắng Tình Yêu (The Bitter Taste of Love, 1990)

This was arguably the most popular film of this era, the Mì Hảo Hảo of instant noodles film. Vị Đắng Tình Yêu is a bittersweet love story between Quang, a humble, nerdy medical student, and Phương, a passionate piano artist named. Phương experiences a downward spiral after a doctor finds a bullet fragment stuck in her brain, forcing her to give up her music career, because thinking too deeply about music could be the death of her.

This was the first instant noodles film that I watched, and I was initially distracted by minor issues. The transitions between scenes feel harsh and disconnected due to the lack of establishing shots. At many pivotal points in the narrative, the film resorts to quick and lazy expositions as opposed to more engaging scenes.

But when I look past these flaws and just accept them as the film’s outdated characteristics, the film turns out to be quite decent. The narrative explores Phương’s need to choose between following her passion or survival. Also, Quang’s gang of six friends has strong chemistry with one another. The actors’ authentic portrayal of energetic schoolboys balances the heavy tones of the film with comedic and wholesome moments. So while there are annoying craft and technical flaws throughout, it’s still worth a watch for its authentic and intriguing humanistic story.

Vinh Quang Cinema (formerly named Casino Cinema) displaying the poster of Vị Đắng Tình Yêu (left), one of the most popular phim mì ăn liền. Photographed by Raymond Depardon in 1992. Photo via Flickr user manhhai.

Representative of the genre: An iconic phim mì ăn liền starring the era’s most popular actors, and the abundance of technical flaws was probably the result of the rapid filmmaking methods. [10/10]
Overall quality: A decent story that needs to improve its filmic language. [6.5/10]
How it holds up today: The narrative and acting performances would still resonate, but the film’s weaknesses would create some irritation. [5/10]

Watch Vị Đắng Tình Yêu here.

Phạm Công - Cúc Hoa (1989)

This is a live-action adaptation of a popular poem by the same name. While not as well-known as Vị Đắng Tình Yêu, Phạm Công - Cúc Hoa was a box office success. It follows the life of Phạm Công, from the day he falls for Cúc Hoa and later marries her, to when they have children. Phạm Công must leave for the capital to serve in the army and encounters many difficulties, while Cúc Hoa struggles to raise their two children on her own.

While in the capital, Phạm Công is forced into marrying the daughter of authority personnel as his second wife. The film thus explores the themes of fidelity and family values, while critiquing the polygynous practices among the aristocrats of the old society. It’s a well thought-out narrative, but unfortunately, the issues lie in how the story is told. During the 2 hours and 35-minute runtime, it overuses prolonged musical montages with neither interesting visuals nor relevance to the plot.

From a technical standpoint, the film has a large amount of combat scenes that are hard to look past. The actors are very slow in their movements as if they are play-fighting. Overall, this film feels outdated, and would be better if it were shorter and more concise in its storytelling.

Representative of the genre: The only standout characteristic of this film compared to other mì ăn liền flicks is the duration, as most films of the era were usually 90 minutes long. [9/10]
Overall quality: A film with a good story, but too slow to get through. [5/10]
How it holds up today: It’s an attempt to make a historical epic that fails to either hide or overcome technical limitations. [2/10]

Watch Phạm Công - Cúc Hoa here.

2. The popular subgenres

There are two major themes in phim mì ăn liền: adolescent romance and historical drama. The former is the most dominant genre of the era, as these youthful love stories were accessible to young audiences, and filmmaking-wise, their contemporary narratives and settings make them easier to produce. For a closer look of this genre, the 1992 film Vĩnh Biệt Mùa Hè (Farewell, Summer) is my pick of choice, because it was not only a major box office hit, but also commonly regarded as a classic adolescent romance of Vietnamese cinema.

The second theme is historical drama. Prior to this era, the genre faced many ups and downs, but experienced a revival during the phim mì ăn liền period with multiple historical films gaining box office success. The 1991 box office hit Tráng Sĩ Bồ Đề (Bồ Đề, Man of Vigor), is considered one of the most impressive Vietnamese historical films in terms of technical quality.

Vĩnh Biệt Mùa Hè (Farewell, Summer, 1992)

Vĩnh Biệt Mùa Hè focuses on best friends Hằng and Hạ, as they navigate romantic relationships during their last year of high school. Hạ, the wealthier of the pair, falls for a humble guy from an impoverished background. Meanwhile, Hằng pursues a taboo love affair with a lecturer in her school.

This film is considered a classic for a good reason. It elevates itself above the familiar tropes of the “poor boy with rich girl” relationship and the teacher-student love affair via its storytelling devices. It begins as a conventional tale about young love, but moves beyond will-they-won’t-they tensions to explore the meaning of true happiness. It’s a very relatable coming-of-age story featuring carefully presented and fully fleshed-out characters.

The film also enjoys a unique visual style thanks to the consistent use of close-up shots which give the actors the chance to communicate their characters’ emotions through facial expressions. The actors’ deliveries of their lines, however, is cheesy, and their speaking is monotone. Even so, the narrative is strong enough to outshine these flaws.

Representative of the genre: The film has common traits of phim mì ăn liền in terms of technical quality and genre. The narrative is excellent when compared to its peers. [8/10]
Overall quality: An exceptional melancholy tale about adolescent love. [8/10]
How it holds up today: Even though the monotone dialogue might be a turn-off to some people, the coming-of-age story is good enough to remind you of your own teenage years. [7/10]

Watch Vĩnh Biệt Mùa Hè here.

Tráng Sĩ Bồ Đề (Bồ Đề, the Man of Vigor, 1991)

In the 10th-century of Vietnam, during the last years of the Đinh Dynasty, the royal family experienced internal disputes. The protagonist, a knight named Bồ Đề, is tasked with taking down a secret group conspiring to overthrow the throne.

This film showcases how instant noodle films often drew inspiration from wuxia movies. Tráng Sĩ Bồ Đề, like wuxia films, includes fast-paced, choppy sword fights, a skilled martial arts warrior living by specific code, and a story that takes place in the midst of a political conflict.

One would expect it to be a historical epic with large-scale combat scenes, but the film turned out to be more of a thriller focused on clandestine political activities in gloomy, secretive forests. This atmosphere creates impressive tension and intrigue. Still, the film’s historical setting and dependence on alter egos make the narrative hard to follow.

In terms of the martial arts elements, the choreography is quite well-done with combat mostly happening in the dark, probably to hide technical limitations. The fights thus come across as realistic. Overall, it’s a gripping historical thriller, with entertaining sword-fighting scenes that don’t feel outdated in any way, even though this film was made in 1991.

Representative of the genre: It has tropes of historical dramas of this era, but it’s more competent in hiding the technical limitations. [8/10]
Overall quality: A film that keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to end. [7.5/10]
How it holds up today: Excellent choreography that is still fun to watch 32 years later. [8/10]

Watch Tráng Sĩ Bồ Đề here.

3. The works of Trần Cảnh Đôn

The director’s chair for instant noodles films was graced by both established filmmakers and new faces. A remarkable personality among them, for me, is Trần Cảnh Đôn, one of the era’s most productive directors, with eight feature films made during the prime of his career from 1990 to 1994. Nearly all of them achieved commercial success, and due to his preference for casting emerging actors, many of his films became the launching pad for some of the decade's biggest names.

Director Trần Cảnh Đôn on set. Photo via Dân Việt.

Two works by Trần Cảnh Đôn are great examples of phim mì ăn liền. First, the 1991 romantic comedy Cô Thủ Môn Tội Nghiệp (The Pitiful Female Goalkeeper), Đôn’s first award-winning film, represents his early success during the instant noodles era. Second, the 1992 film Ngôi Sao Cô Đơn (The Lonely Star) is regarded as one of Đôn’s best works and the film that “sets the standard” for 1990s commercial films.

Cô Thủ Môn Tội Nghiệp (The Pitiful Female Goalkeeper, 1991)

Even today, the subject of women's professional football is rarely explored on film. It was even more niche in 1991 when Trần Cảnh Đôn took on the topic for this film. The story revolves around Thục Hiền, a girl obsessed with football. She has the opportunity to become the goalkeeper for a semi-professional team. Though, it results in a rejection by her would-be fiancé, his parents, and even her own mother.

The antagonists in this film are well-crafted and multi-faceted. Logical motives were established regarding why these three characters are adamant in their rejection of Hiền, as well as how they slowly evolve and grow. Unfortunately, the movie fails at the midpoint when it adds more characters including the football team’s coach and several of Huyền’s teammates.

From a technical standpoint, there is a glaring issue in the film’s usage of dubbed audio. The actors’ audio is too isolated and does not blend harmoniously with the environmental sounds. Unfortunately, this flaw is present throughout the film, making the watching experience less enjoyable. All in all, compared to other instant noodles films, it shares similarities in terms of technical and storytelling shortcomings, but the progressive narrative focusing on women’s football feels like a breath of fresh air.

Representative of the genre: Aside from the unique, niche topic, this film is your average phim mì ăn liền. [9/10]
Overall quality: Too ambitious in its character building, but it examines women in sports in an interesting way. [6.5/10]
How it holds up today: The progressive story might be interesting for modern audiences, but the audio issue is nearly impossible to look past. [4/10]

Watch Cô Thủ Môn Tội Nghiệp here.

Ngôi Sao Cô Đơn (The Lonely Star, 1992)

With Ngôi Sao Cô Đơn, once again Trần Cảnh Đôn brought something new to the table: a rare detective plot in the phim mì ăn liền landscape. The film starts with investigator Quốc in his office with some colleagues, admiring a musical performance by a singer named Mỹ Nhung on TV. A phone call drops the breaking news that Mỹ Nhung has been found dead in her own bedroom. Quốc embarks on a quest to solve her murder and soon uncovers the secret life behind the glamorous facade of the famous musician.

Just like the previous entry, Đôn attempts to showcase numerous characters as nuanced and complete individuals, and this time he succeeds. The chronicling of Mỹ Nhung’s life involves exploring more mature themes of women in the patriarchal music industry.

Beyond rich character development, it’s a stylistically strong film too. Suspenseful music, dark settings, a stern investigator who lights smoke at every chance he gets; it calls to mind a classic 1950s Hollywood detective movie. I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that this film “set the standard” for 1990s commercial films, as this is my favorite in the list.

Representative of the genre: The only similarity this film shared with others is the starring of popular actors in the instant-noodle era. Otherwise, the narrative, genre and overall production value is done too well to group it among its peers. [3/10]
Overall quality: My personal favorite film in this list. [9/10]
How it holds up today: It’s prolific in both storytelling and technical quality, it definitely will hold up if released today. [10/10]

Watch Ngôi Sao Cô Đơn here.

New 'Số Đỏ' Movie Announced, Directed by Phan Gia Nhật Linh, Starring MONO

2024-12-12T13:00:00+07:00

Another classic of Vietnamese literature is heading to the big screen in the near future.

Over the past week, film enthusiasts in Vietnam have been buzzing with the recently announced film adaptation of Số Đỏ (Dumb Luck), one of the most iconic literary works of modern Vietnam. According to Deadline, the project was first unveiled at the Asia TV Forum & Market in Singapore, to be produced by Fremantle, Beach House Pictures and Vietnam’s Anh Tễu Studio.

Written by Vũ Trọng Phụng, Số Đỏ the novel came out in 1936 first as a serial on Hà Nội Báo. The book is a searing satirical attack on the rising bourgeoisie living in Hanoi at the time, using puns, absurdisms, and delicious situational ironies. It chronicles the life of Xuân Tóc Đỏ, a lower-class nobody with a cunning talent for trickery and fronting. By capitalizing on the society’s westernization trend, he was able to infiltrate and ascend the social ladder into elite culture.

Read Saigoneer’s review of Số Đỏ here.

The movie version will be written and directed by Phan Gia Nhật Linh with pop heartthrob MONO — in his acting debut — playing the lead role of Xuân. Linh first announced a similar adaptation back in 2020, though no actor was attached at the time, and the whole project was likely shelved for four years due to the global pandemic. MONO, whose real name is Nguyễn Việt Hoàng, first rose to fame as Sơn Tùng M-TP’s brother, but has since made a name for himself as a charismatic Gen Z pop star. It remains to be seen whether he can do the rather complex role justice.

Số Đỏ will be a collaborative effort between Vietnam, South Korea, and Singapore. South Korean CJ CGV will distribute the movie, but a release date has not been confirmed at the time of writing.

From Cheap Flicks to Local Identity: A Brief History of Vietnamese Horror Films

2024-11-21T11:00:00+07:00

Horror films have been a part of Vietnamese cinema for a long time, since the heyday of the country’s film industry. But the genre's journey has been challenging. For one, its track record includes many films with low-budget production made in a rush for quick profit. Additionally, certain scary elements in horror films often face issues with age restrictions or require last-minute edits to secure approval for theatrical release. As a result, the horror genre in general has a mixed reputation among Vietnamese audience members.

When I began working on this article, I had a similar perception of the genre. My initial approach was to create a simple “Top 10 best Vietnamese horror films” list, selecting notable works from a pool of films that I expected to be underwhelming. However, upon observing the timeline of Vietnamese horror cinema, my perspective changed, because what I found most fascinating about this genre is its transformation over time.

So instead of a “best films” list, I aim to highlight key Vietnamese horror films from each decade, showcasing how the genre has evolved through different eras. The movies selected for this list may not be the best horror films ever, but their key characteristics and filmmaking approaches best reflect the trends and styles of horror cinema at the time they were created. Hopefully, by watching these films, viewers can gain a deeper insight into the strengths, flaws, and growth of Vietnamese horror cinema.

Horror film production before the 21^st century

A brochure introducing Lệ Đá (1971).

The earliest known attempt to create a Vietnamese horror film was Cánh Đồng Ma (Ghost Field, 1938). Written by Đàm Quang Thiện, a writer and doctor from Hanoi, the screenplay tells a psychological horror story about a series of murders near Hanoi’s Bảy Mẫu Lake. Due to a limited budget, it was co-produced with a Chinese investor, and filming took place in Hong Kong with an all-Vietnamese cast.

A newspaper ad showcasing Con Ma Nhà Họ Hứa (1973). Image via Nhạc Xưa.

The production faced major challenges as the Chinese investor pushed for a rushed release. They even altered the script without Thiện's consent, shifting the story focus to detective themes with action elements and alluring female characters. Cánh Đồng Ma hit theaters in 1938 in its altered state and unsurprisingly, it was heavily criticized by film fans, critics and even cast members.

After Cánh Đồng Ma, some articles state that there were other horror movies released throughout the 1930s and 1940s, such as Cô Nga Dạo Thị Thành (Ms. Nga’s City Stroll, 1939) and Khúc Khải Hoàn (Song of Victory, 1940). Unfortunately, these titles were made so long ago, that they are not available for streaming, and information about them is limited, so there is insufficient data to determine whether they can truly be classified as horror films.

It wasn't until the 1970s that Vietnamese horror films began to take clearer shape, with the release of Lệ Đá in 1971, marking an important milestone in the genre's development.

Lệ Đá (Tear of Stone, 1971) | Watch Lệ Đá here.

Lệ Đá chronicles the tale of two young lovers, Kỳ and Trang. After Trang tragically dies in a construction site accident, her spirit lingers still. Five years later, Trang returns, as her spirit inhabits the body of a recently deceased man. Trang, now trapped in the body of an old man, has to find a way to reunite with Kỳ to rekindle their lost love.

Lệ Đá can be watched in full on YouTube.

This film featured an all-Vietnamese cast and was directed by filmmaker Võ Doãn Châu. It was a box office success, largely due to the implementation of supernatural elements and the fact that it has the same name as a popular Vietnamese song. The cinematography also took advantage of Đà Lạt’s mist-filled scenery to create an unsettling atmosphere.

Another horror release that saw major success in the 1970s was Con Ma Nhà Họ Hứa (The Ghost of the Hui Family, 1973). Based on a popular Vietnamese urban legend about a rich family in Saigon-Chợ Lớn. The film was a box office hit, but unfortunately as of now, only the first 10 minutes of the film are accessible to the public.

Ngôi Nhà Oan Khốc (1992).

After the reunification of Vietnam in 1975 and the country put its main focus on war-centric propaganda films, it took a while for horror movies to make their return. Specifically in the era of commercial films in the 1990s, films such as Ngôi Nhà Oan Khốc (The Wailing House) and Chiếc Mặt Nạ Da Người (The Human Skin Mask) arrived. Both 1992 movies reportedly performed quite well financially, but there's unfortunately no publicly accessible way to stream them at the moment.

While it’s difficult to fully analyze pre-2000s horror films, as many of them have become lost media, there are notable motifs from this era that were inherited by films in the next generations, such as how Lệ Đá dives into the concept of death and the afterlife, while films like Ngôi Nhà Oan Khốc and Con Ma Nhà Họ Hứa popularized the use of haunted, mysterious houses as the central settings. Furthermore, Đà Lạt, with its foggy hills and old French-style villas, became a popular setting for horror films, probably because of its association with ghost stories and urban legends. This tradition of filming horror movies in Đà Lạt continued to thrive in the following two decades.

The 2000s, the decade of international influences

After the 1990s, the horror genre saw a long hiatus, likely due to the rise of commercial cinema, which shifted focus to genres like drama and comedy. Eventually, horror movies made their arrival in the new century in 2007, with two releases, Mười and Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn-Suối Oan Hồn. Both share a common pattern: they are heavily influenced by international cinema in various aspects.

Mười: Truyền thuyết về bức chân dung (Mười: The Legend of a Portrait, 2007) | Watch Mười here.

Mười follows South Korean author Yoon-hee, who is in search of inspiration for her next novel. Yoon-hee's long-lost friend Seo-yeon introduces her to the urban legend of Mười, which is about a girl who lived a tragic life and became a vengeful spirit after her death. Intrigued, Yoon-hee moves into Seo-yeon’s villa in Đà Lạt to research the topic, and soon uncovers many secrets about Mười, and a startling discovery about her long-lost friend.

Mười (2007).

This film is a collaboration between Vietnam’s Hãng Phim Phước Sang and South Korea's CJ Entertainment, marking the first Vietnam-Korea film partnership. As South Korean media is already popular in Vietnam and K-dramas are available on many families' cable TV, there was significant media buzz surrounding the film. As a result, it achieved impressive ticket sales, reportedly around VND30 billion.

But its biggest criticism also stemmed from this Vietnam-Korea partnership. The main characters are all Koreans with Vietnamese actors playing minimal roles, it ended up being more like a Korean film that has Vietnam as a setting, rather than a true collaboration between the two countries. Read Saigoneer's review of Mười here.

Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn-Suối Oan Hồn (Mysterious House-Haunted River, 2007) | Watch Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn-Suối Oan Hồn here.

Directed by Nguyễn Chánh Tín, this project isn’t a feature film but a two-episode showcase of the TV series that Tín wanted to produce: a 52-episode horror-drama anthology. This cinematic release was to help fund the production of future episodes and to attract potential investors for the series.

The first part of the showcase is Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn, which centers around a female director determined to create a documentary debunking the existence of ghosts. To do this, she moves into a house rumored to be haunted, but as eerie events unfold before her eyes, she finds her beliefs ruthlessly challenged.

The second part, Suối Oan Hồn, is a horror-thriller set in a barren land inhabited by only three families. Their peaceful lives are shattered as eerie animal howls begin echoing through the land every night, distressing them. Soon, they start witnessing terrifying, bloody visions that slowly drive them to madness.

The film was marketed as being inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho (1960). It incorporated several Hitchcockian techniques such as long tracking shots to build up suspense, and quick shots that jump between characters and their perspectives, immersing the audience in the characterss points of view. If the most iconic scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho takes place in the bathroom, Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn also features a jump scare in a toilet.

Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn-Suối Oan Hồn (2007).

The film's overt showcasing of Hitchcock influences drew some criticism. The filmmakers applied Hitchcock's techniques in a straightforward manner, without a fresh, creative spin, leaving the film feeling somewhat dated and unoriginal to those familiar with global horror flicks.

To sum up, the 2000s served as a period of learning from international horror cinema, and these two films exemplify how filmmakers adopted those influences. They drew inspiration from Hollywood, as seen in Ngôi Nhà Bí Ẩn-Suối Oan Hồn, and collaborated with countries known for more established film industries, such as in the case of Mười. Both films had moderate box office successes, and given their release period, they likely served as an introduction to Vietnamese horror cinema for many young Vietnamese from this current generation.

However, these films still have noticeable flaws in terms of production value, such as script quality, a lack of originality in their scare tactics, and most importantly, the presence of some Vietnamese identity on screen. These shortcomings would eventually be addressed by horror films released in the following two decades.

The 2010s, the commercialization of Vietnamese horror

Heading into the 2010s, things were looking up for the horror genre, with multiple releases earning praises for production quality, some of which even became big money makers. A key highlight was Quả Tim Máu, the highest-grossing Vietnamese horror film at the time whose success was so big that it kickstarted a new era of commercial horror movies.

Quả Tim Máu (Vengeful Heart, 2014) | Watch Quả Tim Máu here.

Quả Tim Máu follows Linh, who, after receiving a heart transplant, begins to experience unsettling visions and nightmares. This supernatural side effect causes her to sleepwalk all the way to the home of her heart donor, Phương. Touched by the hospitality of Phương’s family, Linh decides to stay with them for a few days, but soon, she uncovers the mystery surrounding Phương's untimely death.

Quả Tim Máu (2014).

Set in a haunted villa in Đà Lạt, the story revolves around the spirit of a person who died unjustly. While it uses familiar tropes from Vietnamese horror movies, it succeeded thanks to its well-executed visual effects, art direction and storyline. Directed by Victor Vũ, who is known for a variety of hits across genres, Quả Tim Máu broke box office records, making VND24 billion within three days of its premiere, an achievement that even Hollywood blockbusters couldn’t reach in Vietnamese theaters at the time.

Around the time when Quả Tim Máu was released, a few other horror works were also well-received, such as Lời Nguyền Huyết Ngải (Blood Curse, 2012) and Ngôi Nhà Trong Hẻm (House in the Alley, 2012). But what made Quả Tim Máu influential to many subsequent horror flicks was its bold casting choice of Thái Hòa in a lead role, as he was seen as more of a comedic actor. In the film, he added a touch of comedy and light-hearted moments to this otherwise frightening experience, and this approach soon became a model to emulate. Quả Tim Máu opened the floodgates for a wave of horror films with comedic elements.

Quả Tim Máu (2014).

While it's great that horror became more popular and gained more support from production companies, a number of later horror-comedy films attempted to replicate the success of Quả Tim Máu without fully understanding what made it work. As a result, while Quả Tim Máu carefully balanced horror and comedy, the films that followed its footsteps fell short with poorly executed jump scares mixed with characters constantly dropping one-liners.

By the end of the decade, the trend of horror-comedy had evolved in a new direction. The movies released during the final years of the 2010s began to tackle one previous shortcoming of Vietnamese horror cinema: creating scary stories that resonate with Vietnamese. A prime example of this is Bắc Kim Thang, the release of which foreshadowed the type of Vietnamese horror that would dominate the next decade.

Bắc Kim Thang (Home Sweet Home, 2019) | Watch Bắc Kim Thang here.

This film follows Thiện Tâm, who returns home in the Mekong Delta after a long period of medical treatment in the city. Upon returning, he finds out that his grandfather is becoming increasingly ill, and his sister has gone missing. But the strange thing is, the remainder of his family seems suspiciously indifferent about it.

Bắc Kim Thang (2019).

According to some reviews, while its narrative still could use some improvement, Bắc Kim Thang was applauded for its relatability in storytelling and world-building. Set in the 1990s, the film tackles the issue of chauvinism within family dynamics. The film's scenes of family meals and locations full of rivers and farmland all aim to portray an accurate image of rural life in southwestern Vietnam.

Bắc Kim Thang enjoyed success in ticket sales and was even showcased at Busan International Film Festival, one of the biggest film festivals in Asia. While not a flawless film, it was appreciated thanks to its exploration of themes that resonate with Vietnamese people, an approach that at least one review believed could set a precedent for future productions. Read Saigoneer's review of Bắc Kim Thang here.

While there was no actual explanation for why horror filmmakers started changing their directions, some deductions can be drawn from the film industry at the time. The 2010s was also a busy time for international cinema. A report in 2019 stated that Vietnamese theaters were largely dominated by films from abroad, with approximately 40 local releases compared to around 200 foreign ones. Perhaps, the saturation of foreign films in theaters led audiences and filmmakers to gravitate toward more locally relevant works.

The 2020s, time to find define Vietnamese horror

After a long pause due to COVID-19, the Vietnamese horror genre made its comeback by fully embracing the approach seen in Bắc Kim Thang, which focused on bringing the Vietnamese identity onto the screen. And the audience wholeheartedly welcomed it, an article from September 2024 pointed out that horror films were gaining significant popularity, with several major commercial successes. There are two standout films from this period, Kẻ Ăn Hồn and Quỷ Cẩu. Both films drew in many viewers, perhaps because they effectively integrated Vietnamese cultural elements in different ways, making them notable examples of the genre's evolution.

Kẻ Ăn Hồn (The Soul Reaper, 2023) | Watch Kẻ Ăn Hồn here.

This film unfolds in a remote village burdened by a curse that prevents anyone from ever leaving. On top of this, someone in the village is secretly brewing The Skull Wine, an ancient form of dark magic that requires the harvest of human blood and body parts. And as a series of murders takes place, it’s up to the villagers to identify the culprit.

Kẻ Ăn Hồn (2023).

Kẻ Ăn Hồn garnered attention for its art direction. As the story takes place in Vietnam during the 16^th–17^th century, traditional costumes are used, and meticulous set design brings the rural setting to life. The film also moves away from the usual scare tactics of its predecessors, avoiding excessive jump scares and saying goodbye to villas in Đà Lạt. Instead, the foggy mountains and surrounding forests create an eerie, mystical ambiance that adds to the film’s atmosphere. The soundtrack, featuring traditional Vietnamese instruments, amplifies the creepy elements. The inclusion of cultural elements in the narrative, such as children's folk songs and Vietnamese paper dolls, also brings a sense of horror that originates from a familiar place.

Kẻ Ăn Hồn (2023).

Released during a time when many local films were struggling in ticket sales, Kẻ Ăn Hồn unexpectedly achieved significant ticket sales. It surpassed Quả Tim Máu to become the highest-grossing Vietnamese horror film as of December 2023, marking a stellar comeback for the genre in the 2020s. Still, horror fans might be elated to find that Kẻ Ăn Hồn’s record was quickly broken by the next film on this list, Quỷ Cẩu.

Quỷ Cẩu (Crimson Snout, 2023) | Watch Quỷ Cẩu here.

Quỷ Cẩu revolves around a family running a dog meat vendor. One day, the father of the house unfortunately passed away in an accident while delivering dog meat. This leads to the eldest son, Nam, who lives apart from the family and doesn’t partake in the family business, to return home to attend his father’s funeral. After reuniting with his family, Nam starts having nightmares about his whole family being killed, and soon, the family starts experiencing disturbing, sinister occurrences.

The story draws from the northern Vietnamese urban legend of “chó đội nón mê” (The Dog in the Straw Hat), an ominous dog-like specter that can stand on two legs, wears a straw hat and holds a stick to support its walking. Its appearance is considered a bad omen, signaling misfortune for those who see it. Similar to the previously mentioned film, Quỷ Cẩu also weaves cultural elements into its narrative, but what sets it apart is its decision to reinterpret the urban legend within a contemporary context by addressing the ongoing issue of dog meat consumption in Vietnamese society.

Quỷ Cẩu (2023).

Quỷ Cẩu has a monstrous dog creature as the ghost figure. Even though the reception for it was mixed due to mediocre CGI that made the creature more goofy than frightening, it reveals how the filmmakers attempted to innovate rather than follow the conventional paths of older horror films. Thanks to its creative storytelling and contemporary themes, it quickly joined the small ranks of Vietnamese films that grossed over VND100 billion — a new high in the Vietnamese horror genre.

Conclusion

Vietnamese horror cinema has come a long way. From a period of learning from foreign films, the genre has carved out its own identity. The 2020s saw many sanguine signs in this genre, as we got to see filmmakers experiment with innovative storytelling methods that not only aim to scare audiences but also deliver the stories in a distinctly Vietnamese way.

By observing how these big-ticketed films put effort into creating high-quality works, I believe that they can lay a strong foundation for the future of Vietnamese horror. While there may be setbacks and mistakes along the way, future filmmakers will learn from them, improving the genre as they go along.

Monotonous Viet-Dubbed K-Dramas Were the Soundtrack of My Childhood

2024-05-09T11:00:00+07:00

When I was growing up, my family owned a broken TV whose screen would unexpectedly go black while the audio continued to play. Turning it off and on again a couple of times would fix the problem, but it was such a hassle that sometimes we just let it be. It was stationed in our dining room, and my parents loved putting on Korean dramas when we were eating. So whenever I reminisce about my childhood, the sound of dubbed K-dramas always plays the background.

During the mid-2000s amig the Hallyu wave in Vietnam, K-dramas were widely broadcast. Always dubbed in Vietnamese, these early series relied on voiceover, typically a northern woman's voice, for all the dialogue. In the 2010s, more professional voice acting work started gaining popularity, allowing each character in the series to have a unique voice.

The voiceover lines back then were quite monotonous, so I wasn’t as fond of them as my parents were, preferring Japanese and American cartoons. However, I did continue to encounter K-dramas, albeit in a different way. My parents placed an old TV in my room at some point, so in addition to watching my favorite shows on it, I developed a habit of playing dubbed K-dramas to fill the silence while doing homework or other activities. The familiar voices of these family drama characters going about their mundane lives and having routine conversations put me at ease.

My Lovely Sam Soon (2005) and Winter Sonata (2002), two highly rated K-drama hits of the 2000s.

The habit stopped once I got a laptop that allows me to watch whatever I want. If I need background sound in my room, I can just go to YouTube and play lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to. It's more convenient in general, but those old dubbed K-dramas are hard to find online.

Every once in a while, I would visit an older relative’s house and hear those recognizable dubbed voices again. Such occassions take me back to my family dinners and my teen-era bedroom, when the biggest worries in my life were finishing homework and preparing for tests.

On Returning to K-Drama, the Glue Bringing My Mom and Me Close Together

2024-05-06T10:00:00+07:00

Before Squid Game became an international phenomenon and put K-dramas on the world map, audiences in Asian countries including Vietnam were enthralled by Boys Over Flowers, The Medical Brothers, Terms of Endearment, Dae Jang Geum — all of which are classics that we still look upon with nostalgic affection.

My mother and I were deeply invested in K-dramas in the mid-2000s. If we found a series we both liked, we would remind each other to turn on the TV at airtime so as not to miss a single episode. Once the whole series had concluded, we would hunt down a bootleg DVD copy to rewatch it, often together. We would laugh at the subpar voiceover and weird Vietnamized names.

Growing up, a love of K-dramas was one of the few similarities Mom and I shared, making it a precious bonding opportunity that bridged a wide generational gap. We had incredibly different tastes when it comes to entertainment; she liked Vietnamese TV series, which were always too cheesy and absurd for my taste. I liked Disney Channel and American TV series, which are in a language she doesn’t understand with no voiceover, often featuring plots that are too complex or explicit. K-dramas were where we met each other halfway.

By high school, I had gradually grew bored of K-drama’s predictable plots, stereotypical characters and frequent use of cancer to add drama. The often histrionic performances that were once funny became tiresome. When Netflix was first introduced in Vietnam, I switched completely to American TV shows which struck me as more intelligent and interesting. For two or three years, I abandoned K-drama in favor of these English-speaking series. As a result, Mom and I spent significantly less time together laughing and talking.

I haven't been paying any attention to the new and trendy K-drama series like I once had, until Netflix added much more Korean-language content. Out of curiosity, I started watching again and saw how dramatically the genre had changed. It has grown out of overuse of cancer; and tragic, predictable love triangle setups, instead introducing more diverse themes with greater focus on visual quality and acting performance. K-drama is no longer just a go-to choice for sappy love stories.

These days, I enjoy well-made K-dramas among other series in different languages. But sappy K-dramas are still great when I want something fun, and lighthearted that won’t leave me pondering the implications of after the series ends. More importantly, they remain an opportunity for Mom and I to spend time together, laugh, and be reminded of how much we both loved them back then.

'Madame Pirate,' Film Project Based on Asia's Greatest Female Pirate, Sets Sail Again

2024-02-28T15:00:00+07:00

Zheng Yi Zao “started as a prostitute, resisted the authority of the Qing emperor, kicked everyone’s bottom, and then got away with it... also she has been ignored by history,” explains Vietnam-based filmmaker and photographer Morgan Ommer for why Taiwan was interested in funding a two-part film that tells the story of the leader of the world's largest pirate fleet.

Zheng Yi Zao, also romanized as Sheng I Sao (Trịnh Nhất Tẩu in Vietnamese), was born in 1775 in what is today's Guangdong Province, China. In 1801, she married a pirate named Zheng Yi, and when he died in 1807, Yi Zao took control of his force and continued to expand the fleet to roughly 400 ships and 60,000 pirates. Driven by money and power, they fought the 19^th century's greatest powers which included the British East India Company, the Portuguese Empire and China's Qing Dynasty. They also played an important role in Vietnamese history as the pirates of whom she eventually took command were commissioned by Nguyễn Huệ and the Tây Sơn against the Qing Dynasty, helping to defeat the Chinese invasion of 1789.

“The greatest pirate of all time was not a middle-aged white man with a beard and a parrot on one shoulder. The most successful pirate in history was an Asian woman who started from nothing, built an empire and then retired. Not many people know that, even in Asia,” Ommer told Saigoneer in 2022 as the film's first part, Madame Pirate: Becoming a Legend, was preparing to screen at SXSW that year.

Official movie poster via Madame Pirate's Facebook page.

Now, nearly three years later, he is readying for SXSW once again, this time for the world premiere of part two, Madame Pirate: Code of Conduct. Ommer told Saigoneer via email: “Episode 1 told the story of how she became a pirate. Episode 2 tells the audience how Zheng Yi Zao was able to manage 70,000 ruthless pirates. She was an extraordinary leader, respected and obeyed by her people. The code of conduct is how she achieved this. The code of conduct protected women. We tell the story from the perspective of one of the captives who discovers a completely different society from the one she knows on land.”

Episode 2 will continue Zheng's narrative with Taiwanese actress Yi Ti Yao, again taking the lead and a similar blend of live-action sequences filmed using virtual reality (VR) technology and animated sequences that establish a fairy tale-esque vibe. A behind-the-scenes feature helps explain the process. For this interation, Ommer and his co-writer and co-director, Taiwanese filmmaker Dan-Chi Huang, used a technology called 4DViews, which allows viewers to walk around the actors during the performance. “It’s like being on stage in a play and be[ing] able to walk around the actors during the play,” Ommer explained.

Madame Pirate's Episode 1 screened at SXSW in 2022. Photos via Madame Pirate's Facebook page.

Episode 1 enjoyed successful screenings at world-famous festivals including appearances at the Cannes Film Festival, Kaohsiung Film Festival and the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival. Ommer is hoping for a similar run for Episode 2 after the world premiere at SXSW. Readers interested in this novel approach to telling an intriguing story should keep a close eye on festival schedules near them and the film's Facebook page.