Vietnamese crime films make their mark

The film - considered the first Vietnamese historical crime film on the big screen - has surpassed director Victor Vu's highest-grossing film, Mat Biec, released in 2019, with 180 billion VND. Riding on the momentum of the victory, the director has planned to make a sequel.

Quoc Huy (as Detective Kien) and Dinh Ngoc Diep (Hai Man) in the movie Detective Kien: The Headless Case

Photo: DPCC

Victor Vu created a mysterious atmosphere throughout the film, developed an attractive plot with many surprises, making the audience continuously drawn into the journey of detective Kien (Quoc Huy) searching for each piece to solve the case after Hai Man (Dinh Ngoc Diep) asked him to find the reason why his niece Nga (Minh Anh) went missing. Towards the end, the film became more and more suspenseful as the scattered pieces began to come together into a clear whole. Instead of revealing the identity of the murderer and resolving the story at the climax, Victor Vu spent the rest of the film to dissect the motives, consequences, and connections to the crimes of each person in the past.

The uniqueness is also shown in the fact that all the characters can be related to the case such as Hai Man, Mr. Vinh (Nga's father), Thac, Tuyet, Tuyet's parents, namely the couple Quan Liem - Mrs. Vuong, Mr. Tinh - the most mysterious person in the village, then Dong (the person living in isolation), Mui (Mrs. Vuong's maid)... allowing the audience to freely speculate, and each person will both follow Kien's case-solving process and interpret the story according to their own imagination.

Besides, the beautiful and mysterious Vietnamese landscape, along with the costumes, lifestyle and ancient customs of the North that are vividly portrayed also contribute significantly to keeping viewers interested.

Although some "fans" of crime-solving films think that the story of Detective Kien is not "strong enough" compared to famous works in the world , it cannot be denied that Victor Vu has created a crime-solving film with Vietnamese identity and suitable for the taste of domestic audiences. He shared: "This could be the first historical detective film combining spiritual and horror elements in Vietnamese cinema, a fairly new genre. I am very happy to receive good feedback from the audience. If the audience loves the film, loves the character of Detective Kien played by Quoc Huy, then I will continue my crime-solving journey in the future. When making films, I do not focus too much on revenue, but more importantly, how the audience feels the story I want to tell, whether my work touches the audience or not. That emotion can be suspense, emotion, fear and make a strong impression on the audience".

The strong impressions from the first film show that Vietnamese crime films have great potential to attract audiences when familiar genres such as horror and family psychology are showing signs of saturation.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/phim-pha-an-viet-tao-dau-an-185250507200316721.htm