Criticizing the 18+ horror film with Meritorious Artist Chieu Xuan and Meritorious Artist Quang Teo is blocking the way of Tran Thanh and Thu Trang.

The horror film "Ghost Lamp" unexpectedly topped the box office after Tet despite not being heavily promoted. However, the film also became the center of fierce debate about the quality of its content and acting.

Ghost Lamp was a big surprise at the box office earlier this year. The work was not widely promoted but quickly surpassed its competitors to lead the box office rankings. Box Office Vietnam (independent box office monitor).

However, the film also created fierce controversy about its content and quality. Many opinions criticized the project, from the script to the acting, all received negative comments.

Become a topic of controversy

Ghost lights attracted attention because the script was inspired by classic literary works. The story of the girl from Nam Xuong, set in a northern village during feudal times. However, the film's content has many changes to make it new.

Like the original, the film is about Thuong (SiNy Trang), a woman whose husband is a soldier and has to raise her child alone in the countryside.

The son Thuong (An Binh) accidentally picked up a strange lamp and thought the shadow on the wall was his father returning from the battlefield.

Ghost lamp inspired by the Tale of Kieu.

According to the village shaman, it is a spirit lamp that can connect the two worlds of yin and yang. Since its appearance, a series of strange phenomena have occurred among the villagers, suggesting that the lamp may have summoned an evil spirit back to take revenge.

After that, the film's content exploits many spiritual elements such as sleep paralysis, exorcism, soul exorcism... to lead the story.

On social media, many audience comments expressed disappointment with the film. Viewers said that the film's quality was poor, "bad" and "boring", the work lacked convincing content and acting. In particular, the acting of the male lead Phu Thinh was frustrating, making many people dissatisfied.

The spiritual element in the film was also commented as “half-hearted”. There was a scene that was compared to horror movie Excavate the ghost grave Korean once caused a fever, creating a sense of copying.

Some viewers even asked for a refund because they were so upset after watching the movie.

Is the movie worth criticizing?

Ghost lights is the debut film of director Hoang Nam - famous as a YouTuber with a channel of more than 4.5 million subscribers. Therefore, the work is not without errors and limitations.

However, Hoang Nam showed serious investment in his brainchild, carefully preparing from the script to setting up the scene, choosing actors...

The crew invested heavily in the visuals. The majestic Cao Bang setting was well exploited, creating a space that was both poetic and mysterious, contributing to making the work more appealing. The costumes were also carefully crafted, creating authenticity for the film.

The movie has a well-invested visual part.

Unlike many Vietnamese horror movies, Ghost lights does not abuse jump-scare to scare the audience. Instead, the project follows a spiritual direction so it may not be too creepy or scary.

This factor has somewhat disappointed many audiences. Because they go to the cinema to watch horror movies because they want to experience the feeling of fear, suspense, and tension with unexpected twists.

Instead, Ghost lights has a disjointed and somewhat rambling script with many lines. The second half of the film also cannot maintain the same appeal as the first half because the script is limited, the details are long and lack coherence.

The cast, apart from Meritorious Artist Chieu Xuan and Meritorious Artist Quang Teo, are all young faces, without star appeal or acting experience.

That partly makes the film fail to meet the expectations of a part of the audience, especially those who regularly watch horror movies, have high demands for drama and creativity in the way the story is told.

Vietnamese movies constantly making noise

The appearance of Ghost lights causing the Vietnamese Tet film season to continue to be immersed in noise and controversy. Most recently, The Guardian Quartet belong to Tran Thanh also became the subject of fierce criticism on social networks with completely opposite opinions.

Some people think the film is highly entertaining and suitable for the Tet atmosphere. On the contrary, others criticize the simple and uninnovative plot, the script lacks depth and has many negative points...

The remaining two Vietnamese films are Billionaire Kiss and Love the wrong best friend also received many different compliments and criticisms.

Ghost Light is not the only Vietnamese film causing controversy in early 2025.

Considering the general level of Vietnamese films, Ghost lights not so bad as to be a “disaster”. The work still has a clear idea and message. Therefore, the fact that the film was criticized so badly is truly a pity.

Although controversial, Ghost lights is still attracting great attention at the box office. The work quickly topped the charts of Box Office Vietnam (independent observer) with overwhelming ticket sales despite lower screening times The Four Newspapers mixed Billionaire Kiss .

Up to now, the film has earned more than 25 billion VND after more than one day of release. This is quite a good achievement for a Vietnamese film.

If we look at it from a positive perspective, the praise and criticism surrounding the film shows that the audience still supports domestic cinema, so they increasingly have higher demands on the content and quality of domestic projects.

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