The Vietnamese film market opened the new year with resounding success created by ‘Mai’ with turnover of VND550 billion and Gap Lai Chi Bau (Meet my pregnant sister again) with VND93 billion, according to Box Office Vietnam.

Encouraged by the great success, producers have launched a series of films recently. However, most of the films cannot attract audiences and have had to leave cinemas with big losses.

Most recently, Doa Hoa Mong Manh (A fragile flower) had modest turnover of VND394 million after two weeks of broadcasting. According to the producer, the revenue must be hundreds of billion of dong to break even, because it is a very costly product.

However, analysts are pessimistic about the film, believing that it will have to leave cinemas and go down in history as an all-time loss-making film.

Quy Co Thua Ke 2 (The Heiress) invested in by Trang Nhung and her husband, and directed by Hoang Duy, has left cinemas with revenue of VND6 billion, much lower than the breakeven threshold of VND40 billion.

Sang Den (Bright Light), a work about cai luong, a form of folk opera of Vietnam, had to leave cinemas. Though it came back later, the film directed by Hoang Tuan Cuong, just earned VND3.4 billion in total.

‘Tra’, an 18+ work, which marks the comeback of famous director Le Hoang, earned VND1.6 billion. There has been no official information if it will return.

Since mid-April, there have been two new products in the market – Cai Gia Cua Hanh Phuc (The Price of Happiness) and B4S – Truoc Gio Yeu. The former is about the lives of members of a family and extramarital relations, while the latter focuses on love and sex among youth. 

However, the revenue of both was lower than expected in the first week.

To date, all the works after ‘Mai’ have incurred losses, and directors and producers will have to think about what they need to do to attract people to cinemas.

Who is to blame?

The last three months saw a series of international blockbusters, including Exhuma (VND211 billion), Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (VND135 billion) and Kung Fu Panda 4 (VND134 billion).

The fame of the international films, plus the positive effects after they aired overseas, have raised curiosity among Vietnamese audiences and persuaded people to go to the cinema.

Meanwhile, according to Tung Leo, the director of B4S, the success of a work heavily depends on media campaigns. “Revenue is a complicated story. We cannot say if a film has high quality if we just consider its revenue. We only can say if the films have high marketing quality,” he said.

“Some friends of mine told me that at first, they did not intend to see a film, but later, they changed their mind after reading articles speaking highly of the work,” he added.

Meanwhile, other producers blame unreasonable showtimes. Mai Thu Huyen, the director of A Fragile Flower, said CGV and Lotte, the foreign cinema chains, are dominating the domestic market.

Mai Thu Huyen said that she has been treated unfairly, and her film aired at off-peak hours in the morning or late at night.

However, Nguyen Hoang Hai from CGV Vietnam denied the unfair treatment, saying that all cinemas observe their screening rules based on actual demand from audiences. If a film cannot attract moviegoers, cinemas have to adjust showtimes. 

Stop blaming, find reasons

While directors and producers keep complaining, analysts say that they should spend time to analyze their failures, rather than just blame other people.

Le Hong Lam, a respected critic, said entertainment movies don’t have high quality, while many works are out of date and are vapid.

Other critics also commented that success depends on the quality of scripts. Bad scripts and bad acting won’t be able to attract moviegoers.

Tuan Chieu