Thuy Tien's bewilderment

Việt Nam•28/11/2024

The beauty queen surprised everyone by making a bold transformation in her debut film. However, to go further in this field, she still needs to research the character more thoroughly and refine her acting.

Temporarily removing her beauty queen crown, Nguyen Thuc Thuy Tien surprised everyone by transforming into... a maid in her debut film project. Lynx. In the film directed by Liu Chenglun, the beauty queen plays a maid named Feng, serving the Yangfu family, whose porcelain mosaic business is renowned throughout the region. The head of the family is Mrs. Bich (Hong Dao), who has two sons.

The wife and children of the second son, Vinh Thai, all died in an accident. Many years later, at the birthday celebration of Mrs. Bich, the son of the third son, Vinh Trong, also drowned. But strangely, right in the middle of the funeral, the child suddenly came back to life when a black cat jumped over the coffin.

From that point on, strange things began to happen to the family where the maid, Phuong, served.

Thùy Tiên's efforts

Producer Vo Thanh Hoa stated that choosing Thuy Tien to play the maid Phuong was not a risky move by the team, nor was it a commercial gimmick. She had to go through casting rounds like many other candidates, and ultimately received the director's approval thanks to her talent and convincing performance. "Tien's role as Phuong was an irreplaceable choice," Vo Thanh Hoa affirmed.

While Thuy Tien shared about the character, she said, "I hope that with what I bring to the show, the audience will empathize with Phuong's journey, a heart that has gone through many hardships but still believes in goodness. And then that very goodness makes her doubt herself, forcing her to fight for her own sake."

Thùy Tiên's role is truly the most noteworthy "mystery" in the film. Lynx Essentially, it has a simple, accessible plot, using ghost stories to convey a message about human karma. Behind the calamity that befell the Duong Phuc family are dirty, dark secrets that have accumulated over time. And after all these years of concealment, the perpetrators will one by one receive their just punishment.

At the beginning of the film, the maid Phượng seems like a simple supporting character, merely doing housework and attentively caring for Lady Bích. However, since the Dương Phúc family suffered misfortune, her presence has become unusual. The question arises: Is Phượng simply a servant, or is she actually holding some shocking secret? This is also the plot twist that makes the script so compelling. Lynx It becomes more intriguing, even though the mysterious events are not cleverly presented enough, inadvertently making them predictable, especially for audiences who enjoy horror films.

To be fair, Thùy Tiên did a decent job portraying a maid with a mysterious background. No one knows when Phượng arrived at Dương Phúc. But it's easy to see that her presence alongside Mrs. Bích and other members of the family creates an indescribable sense of strangeness. With a face that's half curious, half worried, half as if she understands everything, the beauty queen makes the character more mysterious and captivating.

Phuong's composure not only fails to reassure viewers, but also gives them a sense of impending danger. It's difficult to know what lies behind that friendly facade, as the maid may well have witnessed many crimes taking place here.

In her film debut, Thuy Tien demonstrated versatility in her portrayal. Her character, at times seemingly meek and submissive in the face of harsh words, transformed into a cunning maid who knew how to win over her masters to serve her own purposes.

Thùy Tiên shows a transformation in her debut film.

"A misstep" in the second half.

However, due to her lack of acting experience, Thùy Tiên "stumbled" in the latter half of the story, at a point when the character's psychology undergoes a complex transformation.

As viewers suspected, despite her status as a servant, Phuong played a crucial role in the conflicts that led to the family feud. She was the one who paved the way for evil spirits to attack everyone in the house.

For discerning viewers, this mystery could actually be guessed before half the film was over. This largely stems from director Liu Chenglun's clumsy and ineffective use of foreshadowing and plot twists.

When the secret is revealed, Phuong undergoes a transformation, showing the devilish version behind her facade of gentleness and contentment. Phuong is actually the second wife of Vinh Thai, who died unjustly years ago. The character's emotions reach a climax as Phuong is driven mad by anger, suffering, and resentment. After years of patiently waiting, all she needs is revenge.

Thùy Tiên's character is given more screen time than the other characters at this point. However, the character's psychology hasn't matured enough, making it difficult for the film's climax to explode as expected.

In the past, Phuong was actually the second wife of Ngoc Le, a singer by profession whom Mrs. Bich considered "a worthless kind of performer." Fortunately, thanks to giving birth to a son, Le was allowed to enter the Duong Phuc family. However, she and her son were betrayed by their own relatives and died tragically.

The incident caused Le to change 180 degrees from a gentle, compassionate girl who always helped others, into a cruel person consumed by unquenchable hatred. She wants revenge on the Duong Phuc family by using dark magic to take the lives of those who destroyed her small family. The character has a motive, but her revenge plan isn't entirely well-developed.

Ngọc Lệ harbored a deep-seated hatred for her sister-in-law, Mỹ Kim, for the murder of her child, yet her revenge targeted an innocent child. Ngọc Lệ hated Mệ Bích for her cruel, superstitious lifestyle that led her to heartlessly take her own niece's life, but ultimately resorted to dark magic for revenge. What the director failed to explain was the character's inner thoughts behind that tragic choice. If it were merely out of anger, Lệ's actions wouldn't be entirely empathetic. Furthermore, having infiltrated the Dương Phúc family for so long, Ngọc Lệ – now a servant named Phượng – had numerous opportunities to act sooner.

On another level, the character's interaction with Vinh Thai, her husband, is also weak. Le may be blinded by hatred, but she can't forget the happy times she shared with Vinh Thai. How she reacts when she witnesses her husband going mad with grief over the simultaneous loss of his wife and child remains a mystery that Luu Thanh Luan has yet to solve.

Thùy Tiên needs to improve her diction and control her facial expressions.

Because of the character's psychological development, Thùy Tiên struggled to convince viewers in the climactic scene. At this point, the character's pent-up resentment wasn't skillfully portrayed. The actress's "darkened" performance was exaggerated with expressions like wide eyes, a sneer, or a frown directed straight at the camera... Her dialogue also sounded forced when the character became evil, constantly snarling and berating Mrs. Bích and her daughter. Thùy Tiên's weak diction was evident; her intonation was stiff and didn't accurately reflect the Huế accent. Furthermore, the dialogue was mostly narrative and self-confessional, inadvertently making the climax feel drawn out.

Moreover, the ending the screenwriter gave the character was cliché and unsatisfying for viewers, because ultimately, women are still the ones who suffer, even though they are essentially victims of a patriarchal system and of superstition.

If the script is handled smoothly and convincingly, while Thuy Tien keeps her expressions restrained, the ending of Lynx Perhaps it's less cheesy and evokes more emotion.

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