If 2012 was a consistent year for Vietnamese cinema, 2013 was a rollercoaster. After a good start with The Lady Assassin 3-D conquering the box office during the Lunar New year holidays, and a line up of three blockbusters ready to go soon after, many people expected 2013 to be a great year for Vietnamese cinema. They didn’t see what was coming.
When Charlie Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American director, came back to Vietnam in 2005 for his theatrical first feature The Rebel, he changed the Vietnamese audience’s mindset about the standard of Vietnamese films. This action flick brought it stars – Johnny Tri Nguyen, Veronica Ngo and the returning Dustin Nguyen – domestic fame and international attention. It got good reviews, and positive feedback from movie fans, but that didn’t help the movie cover the budget of approximately US$2 million. After that, Charlie made three comedies that topped the box-office in Vietnam (including Long Ruoi, which held the record box office for two years until The Lady Assassin 3-D appeared in early 2013).
But Charlie and his brother, action movie star Johnny Tri Nguyen, really go for action movies, not comedy. They also saw the potential of the international market for Asian action films after the big success of Indonesia’s The Raid: Redemption. Bui Doi Cho Lon (initial English title: Chinatown) became a highly anticipated film as soon as it was announced. The first trailer went viral very quickly. But, a week later, the Nguyen brothers announced on their Facebook page that the movie had some trouble with the censorship board. Apparently, the censors wanted them to cut down all the violent scenes and change the ending to “suit the reality of Vietnam society”.
While the studios (Galaxy Studio, Chanh Phuong Films and Early Risers) tried to deal with the authorities, director Charlie Nguyen and Johnny Tri Nguyen posted on their Facebook about how the censorship would hurt their movie. This created a furious angry storm from movie fans. The fans started making memes, comic strips and even spoof trailer to mock the censorship bodies. One clip showed a re-dubbed scene from Downfall, in which Hitler gets angry because he can’t see the movie.
The media jumped in and criticized the censorship board. The filmmakers even thought about getting a lawyer to sue the censorship board, while the studios tried to follow the guidelines and submit a non-violent version.
To punish the filmmaker, the censorship board decided to ban the movie. After the decision, the behind-thescenes clip on YouTube got more than 1 million views in a week. The online community rallied for the movie to be released. They even created a page called “One million vote for Bui Doi Cho Lon to be released”.
A week after the decision on the ban, while the filmmakers tried to figure out a way to solve the problem, an unfinished version of the movie was leaked online.
Pirated DVD copies were sold everywhere. Charlie Nguyen asked his fans on Facebook to stop sharing this version. The Cinema Department fined the studio for the accident, even though who leaked the movie online still unclear.
While Bui Doi Cho Lon’s team were making a noise about their case, there was another Vietnamese indie film trying to find a safe way through the censorship process. Racing Track (Duong Dua), directed by first time director Nguyen Khac Huy, and produced by first time producing studio, Blue Production is a “Quentin-ish” action thriller drama, about an athlete whose attempt to pay a debt led him into a weird journey. In the first cut, there were many graphic scenes of violence, including a scene where a group of gangsters take a kidney from a kidnapped girl and rape her in her blood. The studio followed the guidelines from censorship board, including a reshoot where they had to put more cops into the movie. The director got angry at the producer’s cut and left the movie during post-production.
Because the producers were afraid of the censors, they didn’t dare market the movie until it passed censorship, which was about two weeks before the release date.
It was too late to make the audience aware of a movie which had no big names in it. Although it got many positive reviews from media and film critics after the press screening, the movie bombed at the box office, taking around two billions VND (approximately US$100,000).
The budget was about 12 billion VND (approximately US$600,000).
As big movies were failing, all the attention was on the next big blockbuster movie, Once Upon a Time in Vietnam (Lua Phat), produced, written, directed by Dustin Nguyen, who was also the lead actor. With a US$2 million budget, and a script originally written by Vincent Ngo (who wrote Hancock), and an intentionally appealing cast of Dustin Nguyen, Veronica Ngo and Roger Yuan, Once Upon a Time in Vietnam was the most anticipated film since Bui Doi Cho Lon. Media and movie fans were worried about how censorship might hurt this fantasy action movie, where cowboys and mystery monk warriors fight each other in a fantasy steampunk setting. But censorship didn’t hurt it. The movie couldn’t appeal the local audience because of its strange “exotic” setting. After a month in theatres, the movie barely took 8 billion VND (approximately US$400,000). The international sales didn’t help to cover the budget.
With the three biggest local blockbusters failing at the box office, and Hollywood movies making a lot of money during the summer, industry insiders doubted if there was a market for Vietnamese films at all. In October 2013, a month after Once Upon a Time in Vietnam, four Vietnamese movies were released to compete with 12 foreign films. Two of them didn’t even get attention from the media. The other two comedies, Funny Money (Tien Chua, a dark comedy directed by first-time director Thien Do) and How to Fight on Six-Inch Heels (Am Muu Giay Got Nhot, a chick flick romantic comedy directed by Ham Tran) were expected to be hits. Although both movies got good reviews, they didn’t do well financially: How to Fight on Six-Inch Heels barely broke even, while Funny Money didn’t make its money back.
Meanwhile, Charlie Nguyen and his brothers decided to make a comedy to recover their loss from Bui Doi Cho Lon (16 billions VND, approximately US$800,000). Little Teo (Teo Em) reunited Thai Hoa, a star comedian who has been working with Charlie since his first comedy in Vietnam, Fool for Love (De Mai Tinh), and Johnny Tri Nguyen to play two brothers taking a road trip. The premise of this movie is similar to the Hollywood movie Due Date and the Chinese movie Lost in Thailand. This movie was set to release at Christmas, which made Galaxy studio push back their tent-pole movie, a horror comedy Vengeful Heart (Qua Tim Mau, directed by Victor Vu) to Valentine’s Day release.
It disappointed the film critics, but on its opening day, it surpassed the record of Iron Man 3; its box office after three days was 15 billion VND (approximately $700,000), and it was the biggest opening of all time in Vietnam cinema. After three months, Little Teo had sold over one million tickets. Three weeks after Little Teo, Victor Vu’s comedy Battle of the Brides 2 (Co Dau Dai Chien 2) was released, and did very well at the box office.
Two weeks later, in early February of 2014, the Lunar New Year season arrived with another three comedies and a fantasy. Some of them made money, some of them failed, but overall, the market share balanced out between Vietnamese films and foreign films. But the biggest surprise came when Victor Vu’s Vengeful Heart was released on Valentine’s Day.
Victor Vu and Thai Hoa, two favourite names after the success of Little Teo and Battle of the Brides 2, worked together for the first time to adapt Vengeful Heart from Thai Hoa’s theatrical play. Vengeful Heart broke the record of Little Teo with 10 billions VND (approximately US$500,000) on its opening day, and after its first weekend, earned 24 billion VND (approximately US$1.2 million), to become the biggest opening weekend of all time in Vietnam.
More good news for Vietnamese cinema was Nuoc (2030, directed by Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh) which opened the Panorama section in the Berlin Film Festival 2014. But the movie has a difficulty in finding a release in Vietnam.
With these two biggest box office movies, both starring Thai Hoa, the producers of Fool for Love 2 (De Hoi Tinh) decided to put this project back on track after the delay in December 2013. One of the investors for this project is a new comer: CJ E&M Vietnam, a subsidiary of CJ Group who bought Megastar Cineplex in 2011. In December 2013, CJ announced that they had changed Megastar Cineplex to their brand CGV, and they wanted to invest in the Vietnam cinema industry. Fool for Love 2, directed by Charlie Nguyen, will be one of their first projects.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese indie filmmakers still struggle to make their films. Phan Dang Di started shooting his second feature film, Big Father, Small Father, three years after Bi, Don’t Be Afraid. Nguyen Hoang Diep, a female director from Hanoi, is finishing up her first feature film, Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere, a project that won help from the World Cinema Fund 2012. Ta Nguyen Hiep, an indie director from Ho Chi Minh City, is shooting the last part of his two-year indie project Story of a Boy Who Was Born in Water Sign (Chuyen Nguoi Mang Thuy), a coming-of-age movie.
After the banning of Bui Doi Cho Lon, less filmmakers want to make a daring film, preferring but romance, comedies, horror and thriller films. The line up for 2014 so far is all directed by Vietnamese American directors: Victor Vu pushed back his action films to make Scandal 2, another thriller about showbiz. Ham Tran is working on his horror movie, Hollow. Luu Huynh (director of The White Silk Dress) is working on post-production for his martial art flick A Blind Warrior (Hiep Si Mu). Cuong Ngo (director of Pearls of Far East) is making an action film based on a true story about gangster world in Vietnam, Rise (Huong Ga). Le Van Kiet (director of House in the Alley) is working on post-production for his drama, Gentle (starring Dustin Nguyen) while prepping for his next untitled feature.
Phan Xi Nê