Director Victor Vu brings back "Detective Kien" in a new project

Premiere of the movie “Detective Kien: The Golden Curse”. (Photo: Galaxy Studio)

Detective Kien is a character developed from the movie "Detective Kien: The Headless Case" which achieved a lot of success in both revenue and film awards last year.

Initially, Detective Kien was just a supporting character in the film “The Last Wife” by director Victor Vu, but the impression of this character was so strong that the audience asked him to make another film for Detective Kien. The film earned nearly 250 billion VND and won many awards at the 2025 Da Nang Asian Film Festival and the 2025 Vietnam Film Festival.

“Detective Kien: The Headless Case” was based on the novel “Lake of Resentment” by Hong Thai. And the sequel “Detective Kien: Golden Curse” was also based on a work by Hong Thai, “Phuc Gia Truyen”, the novel considered the main source of inspiration for this film project.

Director Victor Vu, actress - producer Dinh Ngoc Diep, writer Hong Thai and actor Quoc Huy at the poster and film introduction.

Sharing about his latest work being chosen as material to be brought to the screen, writer Hong Thai said: “I am not pressured when my work is chosen to be made into a film. In fact, after each of Victor Vu’s cinematic works, I come up with new stories, because I understand his way of working. Victor does not adapt the original, but only takes a foundation to develop the story in his own way.”

In fact, writer Hong Thai had cherished and written "Phuc Gia Truyen" before "Detective Kien: The Headless Case" was completed. "I almost consider this a gift for my two children, Ngoc Diep and Victor Vu. If this work can become material or documentation for my children's new film project, then I will fully support it."

Revealing the process of forming ideas for the next film, director Victor Vu said: “I don’t want the second film to be just an ‘upgraded’ version of Detective Kien. I hope to bring a new cinematic experience, not only from the plot but also the way of storytelling. And when I read ‘Phuc Gia Truyen’ by writer Hong Thai, I was strongly impressed and inspired. The work is a huge treasure trove of documents, not only about the historical context but also in the system of characters and ideology, creating the premise for me to develop ‘Detective Kien: Golden Curse’.”

Director Victor Vu also said that the film project was only inspired by “Phuc Gia Truyen”, and not a complete adaptation because it only kept about 30% of the novel’s content. However, the spirit and value system of the original work were still given priority in the script development process.

The role of Detective Kien was once again chosen by director Victor Vu for actor Quoc Huy. This was both a pressure and an opportunity and an interesting experience for Quoc Huy.

He said: “With the role of Detective Kien, I always try to find new nuances so that the character does not become boring to the audience. Honestly, I also feel pressure from Kien's 'shadow', but I do not let that become a barrier. Up to now, I have tried many types of roles, so if I come across a good enough script, Huy is still ready to accept other characters.”

The crew shares about the project "Detective Kien: The Golden Curse".

Actress - producer Dinh Ngoc Diep revealed: “With the second part of the film, the production process encountered more difficulties because of more than 60 different internal and external settings. The story is also larger in scale, the setting is not only limited to an ancient urban area, which entails high requirements for costumes, art design and character system. Therefore, we decided to do pre-production 6 months in advance to ensure that all elements are prepared carefully and most reasonably.”

In addition to announcing the project, the organizers also announced casting activities for the film, starting from November 26 in both online and offline forms, to find new faces for the project.

According to the plan, the film is expected to start filming in April 2026 and be released at the end of 2026. With “Detective Kien: Golden Curse”, the crew hopes to not only continue the success of the previous part but also further expand the cinematic world revolving around the character Detective Kien - one of the rare detective images built in a long-term direction in Vietnamese cinema.

The film is produced by November Films, invested and distributed by Galaxy Studio.

LINH KHANH

Source: https://nhandan.vn/dao-dien-victor-vu-dua-tham-tu-kien-tro-lai-trong-du-an-moi-post926311.html