When overseas Vietnamese make movies

When overseas Vietnamese make movies

With more and more overseas Vietnamese returning home to make movies, a Hollywood-style wind seems to be blowing through the cinema market, which has turned bustling thanks to private film studios efforts.

Picturesque images

The public and professionals alike have great expectations for movies made by overseas Vietnamese since they have been trained in and emerged from developed cinema industries abroad.

Overseas Vietnamese movies indeed have obviously superior qualities, one of which is beautiful images.

In The Scent of Green Papaya, for instance, Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung, who has led the wave of overseas Vietnamese returning home to make movies, with his cinematographic team and their modern equipment which Vietnamese filmmakers only dream about, superbly recreated the image of the Vietnamese countryside with small window frames, thin curtains, honey-coloured sunshine, green papayas and white sap.

The Scent of Green Papaya thus won the Golden Camera award at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. Tran Hung Anh later works Cyclo and the Vertical Ray of the Sun are also known for their beautiful shots.

After Tran Anh Hung, Tony Bui with his picturesque Three Seasons was also quite successful with the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.

And the Vietnamese movie that has taken place in the most international film festivals, the Buffalo Boy, by director Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh, is an exceptionably beautiful painted portrait of the southern waterways.

A recent project, the White Silk Dress, was also praised by the Golden Kite Awards jury as having a œpoetic and beautiful cinematic language. It is the film images that have contributed much to its success.

œI cried 5 times when watching this movie, not because of my pity for the leading character Dan, but because of its beautiful images, so beautiful as to move your heart, said Vietnamese director Do Minh Tuan.

Professionalism

Most overseas Vietnamese projects have been carried out in a highly professional way. A producer said lack of professionalism or even a very small mistake could destroy a whole project.

One overseas Vietnamese filmmaker surprised domestic ones when he carefully counted the number of steps it took to walk from the studio to the resting area. He explained he wanted to make sure the film team didnt have to walk so far as to be unnecessarily tired or waste time and thus affect productivity.

Actors in overseas Vietnamese film projects are also taken great care of. And this is opposite to the quite common practice of domestic directors scolding actors while filming. That why actor An œti from Military Art Troupe once said he was very happy to œwork with Westerners.

In addition, overseas Vietnamese film teams often hold press conferences to talk about their films while their domestic counterparts dont have the means or it doesnt occur to them to do so.