'Tunnel' reaches 150 billion VND milestone

According to data from Box Office Vietnam, Headless Ghost topped the box office charts last week. Over the weekend, the film directed by Hai Bui earned more than VND21 billion, with about 250,000 tickets sold. On average, each screening sold about 32 tickets.

Including special screenings, the film's revenue as of the evening of April 20 was 29 billion VND - not an explosive opening performance but still quite impressive for Vietnamese horror films.

After the first screenings, the work received mixed reviews about its quality. The script was criticized for being loose, and the humor and horror scenes were not impressive. The film was inspired by a real case, and wanted to incorporate a humane message - a commendable effort. However, the director's storytelling style unintentionally made these messages conveyed to viewers somewhat distorted. The work was criticized for its tendency to "glorify" the perpetrator, and blame the victim.

However, Finding the Body: Headless Ghost still achieved good revenue thanks to the appearance of a cast with familiar faces such as Hong Van, Tien Luat, Dai Nghia... Besides, the crew also promoted, along with cinetour campaigns to attract the attention of the audience.

"Finding the body: Headless Ghost" dethroned "The Underground".

Back at the box office, Tunnels dropped to second place last week. Bui Thac Chuyen's brainchild earned 11 billion VND, bringing the total revenue to 150 billion VND. This is an unprecedented achievement for the war/historical film genre in Vietnamese cinema.

However, the rate at which The Tunnels makes money has slowed down significantly, although it still maintains around 1,500 - 2,000 screenings per day. With the current box office situation, the possibility of the film reaching the 200 billion VND revenue mark is unlikely.

In addition, a series of new international films released last week such as Bribery, Kappa: Evil Spirit Under the Lake or Ghost Mother all had lackluster performances. The lack of appeal of foreign films created conditions for the two Vietnamese films Underground Path and Headless Ghost to have more time to increase their revenue, before the blockbuster duo Lat Mat 8 (Ly Hai) and Detective Kien (Victor Vu) officially released on the occasion of the April 30 - May 1 holiday.