International Festival Premiere | In Competition
Vietnam, 2025, 118’, Vietnamese
Directed by: Hàm Trần
Screenplay: Nguyễn Hoàng Dương, Hàm Trần, Nguyễn Mai Nhật Ánh
Cinematography (color): Hoàng Trung Nam
Editing: Nguyễn Ngọc Nhiên, Lưu Đình Mẫn Thanh, Hàm Trần
Music: Bruno Bugnano
Producers: Lương Công Hiếu, Nguyễn Quốc Công, Hàm Trần
Cast: Thái Hòa (Long), Võ Điền Gia Huy (Tí), Bảo Định (Sửu), Ray Nguyễn (Dần), Kaity Nguyễn (Trinh), Trâm Anh (Nhàn), Xuân Văn (Phương), Lợi Trần (Hải)
Date of First Release in Territory: September 19th, 2025
An airplane, some hijackers and the year 2025 come to see filmmaker Hàm Trần not to make a joke, but to prove that certain things are perfect for each other to an incredible degree. I’m not being hyperbolic at all – there’s footage of Hàm describing the airplane set with the most apparent and infectious variant of joy (“I’ve always dreamt of the day I get to be on a set that can move or spin, and that I can physically be in it to test it out!”) and belief (“I know I’m making something special here…”).
And he was right. Hijacked offered so much high-octane entertainment that it became one of the year’s top earners and the filmmaker’s first title to reach the coveted “100 billion VND” mark. But above all else, it would introduce crowds to a brand-new historical fact: Vietnamese aviation did have hijacking incidents (one of which, C501, inspired the film’s plot). It was a simultaneously lower-tech but higher-strung time among the locals; the fall of Saigon was still fresh, and “staying or leaving” was a delicate notion to host. For hardened father Long (Thái Hòa, also in Tunnels), leaving Vietnam is the choice, so he, his son Sửu (Bảo Định from Viet and Nam) and a couple of youngsters decide to terrorize everyone on this flight, among them the attendants (Kaity Nguyễn and Trâm Anh) and the air marshals (Thanh Sơn and Ma Ran Đô).
But even without this cultural context, Hijacked is still a gift for action cinema fiends. In perfect tandem with Hàm’s affinity to craft and maintain that “pressure cooker on the verge of explosion” sensation, displays of aggressive close-quarter combat from action director Trương Thế Chi and team both emphasize brutality and heighten the catharsis. “The happiest thing [about working on this film] was that I truly got to craft action that satisfied both the director and myself,” Chi once shared to local media.
Of course, for entertainment purposes certain liberties were taken, but none of the characters’ real life counterparts and/or inspirations minded that. According to them, the crew ultimately replicated the most pronounced element throughout their ordeal, which lasted for 52 minutes: suspense. At multiple press conferences or post-screening meet-and-greets, Ngô Kim Thanh, one of the attendants on the C501 flight and is the model for Trâm Anh’s character, said the film made it easy for her to relive those life-and-death moments. Thanh got shot four times in the leg by a hijacker. Even so, she said her priority was to keep the passengers out of harm’s way.
On that note, the People’s Public Security (which backed the film) stated that Hijacked should be seen as a tribute to those who keep the skies safe rather than exclusively authority figures. And so, despite taking place at altitude, Hàm’s film also chooses to underscore the human beings in the story more than the factors that make the story one worth telling.
In February, the film was named as one of five action films worth streaming by The New York Times.
Hàm Trần
Hàm Trần is a director, producer, writer and editor born in Saigon, and an alumnus of the UCLA School of Film and Television. His first feature, Journey from the Fall, premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and won multiple awards. Hàm also has under his belt successful feature films such as How to Fight in Six Inch Heels, Hollow and She’s the Boss. In 2023, Tran wrote and directed a true-crime series, Missing on the Eve of Tet, for the local streaming service Galaxy Play, and then the Vietnamese Netflix Original Devil’s Diner.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
2006 – Journey from the Fall
2013 – How to Fight in Six Inch
Heels
2014 – Hollow
2016 – Bitcoin Heist
2017 – She’s the Boss
2022 – Maika
2025 – Hijacked