Vietnamese cinema is waiting to “heat up” at the end of the year

Having flourished during the Tet film season and the first half of the year, but plummeting in the middle of the year, Vietnamese films are looking forward to a number of works coming to theaters to be able to close out a perfect year.

Ups and downs

As of September 13, there have been 15 Vietnamese films released in 2023, about 1/3 of which have low revenue and heavy losses. But if compared with the film market in 2022 and previous years, Vietnamese films in 2023 still have positive signs: the number of films from a tie to a win in terms of revenue accounts for more than 50%, a number of independent and art films. When released like Children in the Mist, Inside the Golden Cocoon… although it didn’t explode, ticket sales still exceeded expectations.

Sharing about the current situation of Vietnamese films, director Victor Vu commented: “While many film markets continue to face difficulties after the pandemic, Vietnam has reached a record peak in box office revenue. The most interesting thing is that most of the revenue comes from domestic films. Audience demand for Vietnamese films is increasing.”

Also according to statistics, after only about 2 decades since private movies began to explode, Vietnamese box office revenue has grown by an average of 10% per year, since the mid-2010s.

One of the notable points in terms of market revenue in 2023 is the large fluctuations. After peaking from the beginning to the middle of the year, the market bottomed out in the next 3 months, when the summer was almost completely absent of Vietnamese films. 2023 is also predicted to be the year with the lowest number of movies released in theaters in the past few years. Up to now, according to the announced release schedule, there are a total of less than 30 movies that will be released this year. The range of revenue fluctuations between films is also increasingly widening.

For example, Mrs. Nu’s House has a revenue of up to 475 billion VND, while Fanti’s revenue is less than 2 billion VND, or Touching Happiness is just over 2 billion VND. Of course, all comparisons are lame, but looking at the numbers to see the success and failure of Vietnamese films in 2023 is not outside the general rule.

With world cinema, there are also truly explosive films, reaching billions of dollars in revenue, but there are also disastrous failures. In particular, many blockbuster movies with production costs of up to hundreds of millions of dollars also suffered heavy capital losses.

Waiting to go upstream

In the last 4 months of the year, it is expected that 10 more Vietnamese films will be released with a diversity of genres, themes, and new experiences. There are films by young directors (Intersection 8675, Appropriation, Live: Live Stream) and the return of famous directors and producers is highly anticipated.

Currently, attention is focused on two works that are expected to “rescue” the film market: Southern Forest Land (directed by Nguyen Quang Dung) and The Last Wife (directed by Victor Vu).

“For the younger generation of audiences, you will find in Southern Forest Land cultural discoveries through the adventures of children. In it, children will meet good and bad people, overcome challenges to become more independent and mature,” director Nguyen Quang Dung promised.

It was revealed that the film’s production cost exceeded the 40 billion VND mark while at the same time under pressure and inheriting the advantages from the success of the TV series of the same name. The movie is scheduled to premiere on October 20.

The Last Wife (premiering November 3) marks the first collaboration between Victor Vu and the most popular actress Kaity Nguyen, along with familiar faces: Thuan Nguyen, Meritorious Artist Quang Thang, Meritorious Artist Kim Oanh … In particular, it has been a long time since Vietnamese cinema has had a film set in the past (19th century) with the first images revealed through the meticulousness of the setting, costumes, props… bearing literary material. bold traditional Vietnamese culture.

Another waiting unknown is The Sun Man (Timothy Linh Bui) whose story about vampires will have variations to suit Vietnam. 5 years after the success of I’m not 18 yet, the return of the director-screenwriter duo: Le Thanh Son and Tran Khanh Hoang in Claws or the horror project Tet in Hell Village (Tran Huu Tan)… there is also elements to attract audiences.

Mr. Le Hoang Minh, representative of BHD Star cinema complex, said that it is difficult to predict the revenue situation of Vietnamese films in the last months of the year. “Everyone saw that during the recent September 2 holiday, Anonymous did not have as good a revenue as expected. Even in the summer movie season, foreign blockbusters are not successful. Vietnamese films are certainly affected by economic difficulties, and audiences’ habits of choosing to go to theaters to watch movies have also changed. In terms of business, although we still have hope, we are not too confident. We just hope that the audience will still support Vietnamese films, even though it is very difficult to achieve huge revenues.”

VĂN TUẤN – sggp.org.vn