The Vietnamese film market is booming rapidly, standing out in Asia, thanks to Tran Thanh and many blockbuster movies.

A screening of Tran Thanh's film Mai in Australia during the recent Tet and Valentine's Day - Photo: DPCC

"How Vietnam became one of Asia's fastest-growing film markets with new cinema complexes, a hungry audience and a dynamic domestic film industry" is the title of an attention-grabbing article by author Liz Shackleton on Deadline on February 23.

Some Vietnamese filmmakers shared in the article with the hope of building a positive picture of the dynamically developing film industry in Vietnam.

Steady growth, Vietnamese films lead the way

Deadline cited separate figures showing that Vietnam's box office revenue grew steadily by 10% annually before the pandemic, surpassing Thailand - a country with a much more developed and long-standing film industry.

To talk about the development of the Vietnamese film market, we cannot help but recognize the importance of films shown during Tet in Vietnam - a characteristic because this is the low season of major film markets.

The cast of Tran Thanh's film Mai interacts with the audience during Tet - Photo: Cut from clip

And it is the Tet film market - which brings together a large portion of Vietnamese cinema revenue during the year - that has contributed to Tran Thanh's achievement as "Vietnam's first trillion-dollar director".

With only three Tet films that have a revenue of over 400 billion VND, namely Bo Gia, Nha Ba Nu and Mai , Tran Thanh not only surpasses his own revenue but also gradually brings Vietnamese films to the international market...

Notably, after more than a week of release, the movie Mai has entered the top 15 highest-grossing movies in the world in 2024 (as of February).

Victor Vu's 100 billion dollar movie The Last Wife will be shown in the US in December 2023 - Photo: DPCC

Production unit Mrs. Nu and Mai's house In addition to Tran Thanh Town, there is also CJ HK Entertainment - a joint venture between CJ ENM of Korea and HK of Vietnam.

This form of cooperation has developed over the years and has been successful.

In 2023, the hundred billion dollar movie The Last Wife by director Victor Vu is produced by Lotte Entertainment in collaboration with November Films and T Film of Vietnam.

The role of "box office star" filmmakers is very important, but they are not the only ones who have made the market grow over the years.

Also shown this Tet, Nhat Trung's film "Meeting the Pregnant Sister Again" has stable revenue - currently over 77 billion VND and is sure to make a profit.

If shown at another time of the year, Seeing the Pregnant Sister Again would have been very unlikely to reach this revenue level because the film was not too "viral", had few topics for discussion, and was almost drowned out by the Mai and Dao, Pho and Piano fever on social networks.

Or throughout 2023, Vietnamese films from different producers also created fevers and brought in good revenue like the films:

Flip Side 6: The Fateful Ticket, Super Con Meets Super Mud, Southern Forest Land, Sister Sister 2, Con Nhót Mot Chong, The Soul Eater, Ghost Dog...

The Vietnamese film market is also noted to be led by domestic films, alongside Korean, Thai and Indonesian films, while American films in Vietnam are on the decline.

There are rising waves of Vietnamese films that are noted as the horror wave, especially ProductionQ - with producer Hoang Quan and director Tran Huu Tan.

They pursue horror films based on folk elements or adapted from Vietnamese novels ( Soul Eater, Tet in Hell Village ).

Last year, Vietnam’s box office revenue reached $150 million (VND3,969 billion), equivalent to about 90% of pre-pandemic levels, from a total of 1,100 screens. That’s not bad for a market that in 2010 had just 90 screens and annual revenue of less than $15 million.

Deadline wrote

5 million tickets per 100 million people is not high

In previous years, when answering Tuoi Tre about the direction for the market to develop and have movies with revenue of thousands of billions, distributors gave many solutions but often had one common factor: Vietnam needs more cinemas and the number of regular audiences needs to increase.

Popular Vietnamese films need to sell more tickets because the market still has a lot of potential - Photo: Beta Cinemas

This Tet, when the movie Mai announced the number of 5 million tickets sold (February 24), there was debate online about whether that number was realistic. But in the eyes of filmmakers, 5 million movie tickets out of about 100 million people - for a movie that is about to be the top 1 best-selling Vietnamese movie ever - is not a high rate at all.

For comparison, the top 3 Korean box office films of all time, The Admiral: Roaring Currents, Extreme Job and Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds, all sold over 17 million, 16 million and 14 million tickets respectively. Meanwhile, Korea has a population of just over 50 million.

The Admiral: Roaring Currents (top 1 Korean box office) sold 17 million tickets in 2014 - Photo: IMDb

Korea has long been a market where Vietnam has many exchange activities, learn experiences, and cooperate in production and distribution... Korean enterprises have also contributed significantly to the construction of cinemas in Vietnam, such as the multiplex cinema system operated by CJ CGV and Lotte Cinema.

In addition, the Galaxy Cinema, BHD Star Cineplex theater systems or smaller brands such as Mega GS, Cinestar, Beta Cinemas... with lower ticket prices also attract many audience segments.

The Vietnamese market is still considered quite young, with 80% of the audience under 29, Nguyen Tuan Linh, CJ HK's distribution supervisor, told Deadline . That age group is basically driving the tastes: romance, comedy, horror. They are also very active on Facebook and TikTok.

After The Godfather, more Vietnamese films are coming to America

Mai's photo on Deadline article

Besides the domestic market, Vietnamese cinema needs films to be shown and make a splash abroad, especially in major markets.

This has been making progress over the past three years. According to Deadline , since Tran Thanh's Dad, I'm Sorry premiered in a few theaters in the US in 2021, the scale of Vietnamese film distribution in the US has increased significantly. In 2023, there will be at least 6 Vietnamese films premiering in North America, some of which will be premiering in 40-70 locations, according to Thien A. Pham, founder of distribution company 3388 Films.

Initially, Vietnamese films were aimed at the Vietnamese community in the US, then expanded to Kansas, Ohio and North Carolina - places that had never shown Vietnamese films before.

Skyline Company of Hang Trinh distributor is also making many co-produced films. Together with Vietnam Media Corp of BHD, Skyline regularly brings Vietnamese films to international film markets.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/thi-truong-dien-anh-viet-bung-no-nhanh-noi-bat-chau-a-nho-tran-thanh-va-nhieu-phim-an-khach-20240226090236303.htm