When the actors ate and slept in a garbage dump to make the movie "Life is still beautiful"

Leading rating nationwide

Airing since early April, "Life is still beautiful" is the next film directed by Danh Dung, produced by VFC, attracting attention right from the first episodes.

According to data from market research firm Kantar Media Vietnam, it regularly leads the country's most watched programs, with ratings above 4%.

When actors ate and slept in a garbage dump to make the movie

Cast of the movie

On the VTV Entertainment fanpage, each video clip attracted millions of views and hundreds of thousands of comments and shares. At its peak, one video clip even reached 4.3 million views. This interaction is not inferior to previous blockbusters such as "Don't make mom angry" or "Thuong ngay nang ve".

The appeal of the film also brings a series of other values to the publisher, especially the huge amount of revenue from advertising.

According to Notice No. 110/2018 of the TVAD Advertising and Television Services Center, before the broadcast time of “Life is still beautiful” (before 9:40 p.m. every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) on VTV3, the price for each 30-second advertising block is 127.3 million VND. If the advertisement is broadcast during the movie, the price is increased to 136.4 million VND for each 30 seconds.

When actors ate and slept in a landfill to make the movie

Director Danh Dung (far left) and the cast behind the scenes of the film

Although he is a director who guarantees quality with blockbuster family TV series such as "Come Home, My Child" and "The Taste of Love", "Life is Still Beautiful" is a new color of director, Meritorious Artist Nguyen Danh Dung.

It is also a daily life, but it takes the audience out of the luxurious, glossy scenes, to the common market and the riverside boarding houses where all kinds of people live in the bustling city. On that background, the main characters are no longer the usual motif of businessmen, directors or rich, successful women, but the lives of those at the bottom.

“I read this script by Khanh Ha and really liked it. It’s been a long time, 20 years since “Chuyen pho phuong”, that I made a film about workers. I want the audience to share and feel more about their lives and circumstances. I want to exploit this topic in the most humane way, to say that no matter what life is like, they still rise up and love life,” the director confided.

The feat of building the scene in a poor working-class neighborhood

The film is about poor workers in a market area, so the setting is also completely set in a real market area at Long Bien market. Director Danh Dung said that the film crew spent a lot of time researching and building a real setting there, to be more proactive in filming.

When actors ate and slept in a garbage dump to make the movie

The desolate setting of the poor boarding house in the movie

Directly responsible for the construction of the set, artist Duc Tho revealed that only a few small sets were rented, while the dilapidated, poor houses in the poor boarding house of the main characters in the film were all newly built, right behind Long Bien market, in Phuc Xa ward, Ba Dinh district, Hanoi .

“The two main scenes in the film are the room of Mrs. Tinh (Meritorious Artist Thanh Quy) - Luyen (Thanh Huong) and her daughter and the room of Luu (Meritorious Artist Hoang Hai). Of these, Luyen's room had to be completely rebuilt right in the middle of the landfill, while Luu's room was renovated on the existing land.

After building the frames of the rooms, we had to look for old materials and old furniture to install the "interior", even things that were not old had to be made old. For example, beds, cabinets, tables, corrugated iron roofs, and iron objects all had to be treated with chemicals to fade their color.

In addition, every time it rains, the water washes away the entire floor because Luyen's room is in a low-lying area. When we first filmed it was the drizzly months of the North, so it was very dirty there. Anyone who walked out of the set looked like they had just returned from planting rice.

When making a film about poor workers, if the setting is not authentic and appropriate, it will not only cause a negative reaction from the audience but also make it difficult for the actors to capture their emotions. What I worry about most is how to make the newly built setting fit in with the existing population.

Not to mention, we were also under pressure to complete the pre-production stage in a short time to be able to film and broadcast. We only had a little over a week from finding the location, finalizing the plan and starting to build the scene,” the artist confided.

In addition to the working-class neighborhood setting, the film also has many scenes filmed at Long Bien wholesale market. Because it is a wholesale market, this place is active from about 9pm the night before until dawn the next morning.

To facilitate filming, setting up the scene and recording live sound, the crew had to choose a time when the market was not too crowded to film, usually from 7am to 11pm every day. For scenes that required a large crowd, the crew had to choose when the market was open.

Not only was it difficult to build the scene, the artist added that moving into the poor boarding house was also very difficult, the road was too small for cars to enter, the crew had to hire a trailer to transport the filming equipment. After that, the crew had to rent a room to leave some equipment and then move it after filming. "Usually, every time we go in and out of this scene, it takes us almost the whole morning," said artist Duc Tho.

Eat and sleep in the dump to make a film

Recreating the lives of poor workers means that the actors in the film have to give up their usual glamorous appearance - to enter characters with rough, thorny appearances.

During filming days, the whole crew had to eat and sleep next to a garbage dump, next to a sewer with black sewage, regardless of whether it was raining or days hotter than 40 degrees Celsius.

When actors ate and slept in a garbage dump to make the movie

Scene where the film crew was filming

“The first time I entered the character’s house, I was stunned for a few minutes because there was nothing inside, the floor was all sand and gravel. During the wet season, the floor was always dirty and filthy. When it rained, our hair was soaked. There was a foul smell around us when we ate, but after a while we got used to it.

Moreover, once we started working, we had no choice but to try our best. When we received love from the audience, I felt that our dedication was recognized,” Thanh Huong confided.

Actress Minh Cuc humorously confided: “The whole crew almost lived with trash to have realistic scenes. When the sun rose, the smell was strong. But every day we had a break from filming, we missed that smell so much. During the filming period, we integrated and understood more about the lives of the people here. That helped us a lot in getting into character."

In addition, when transforming into laborers, the actors had to act out lines, carry and pull heavy carts, or have scenes where characters fought or were dragged on the ground... Therefore, almost every actor was covered in injuries. "Whenever the director shouted 'cut', I sat there, breathless," Minh Cuc recalled about memorable scenes.

When actors ate and slept in a garbage dump to make the movie

Meritorious Artist Hoang Hai and actress Minh Cuc in a scene

“Life is still beautiful” is expected to last 30 episodes. In the scorching hot days of May in Hanoi, the film crew still had to “race against the weather” to film the final episodes. The film was made in a rolling format, making the crew work at full speed.

The work pace is tight and time pressure is high, but the crew does not feel tired. On the contrary, the joyful atmosphere like a family is always present in the film crew.

“Every film has its own hardships and difficulties. But when we are on set, we are like a family, sharing the joys and sorrows with each other. Because of the nature of the work, which is very hard, acting from morning to night for a long time continuously, we are very close, supporting each other not only during filming but also behind the scenes.

We shared everything from mosquito spray to sticky rice for breakfast. Even when we finished filming difficult scenes, the fatigue disappeared,” Meritorious Artist Hoang Hai confided.

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