Gems of Vietnamese cinema
This list includes Award-winning films from Vietnam which is mostly non-commercial films, art-house and indie films. But due to the strict censorship system of Vietnam, some of these films have even been banned in Vietnam or heavily edited to be able to hit the theatre.
This list was created to honour Vietnamese artists who dared to break outside of conventions that people normally rely upon and created these masterpieces, if you are interested in Vietnamese culture or Asian cinema in general, this is for you.
This list was created to honour Vietnamese artists who dared to break outside of conventions that people normally rely upon and created these masterpieces, if you are interested in Vietnamese culture or Asian cinema in general, this is for you.
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- DirectorTran Thanh HuyStarsTran Anh KhoaAnh TuJayvee Mai The HiepMovie story revolves around the life, fate of street children, homeless, specializing in selling lottery results every afternoon.
- DirectorAnh Hung TranStarsLe Van LocTony Leung Chiu-waiNu Yên-Khê TranWhen a poor bicycle-taxi driver has his cyclo stolen, he is forced into a life of crime. Meanwhile, his sister becomes a sex worker.
- DirectorAnh Hung TranStarsNu Yên-Khê TranMan San LuThi Loc TruongA Vietnamese servant girl, Mui, observes lives within two different Saigon families: the first, a woman textile seller with three boys and a frequently absent husband; the second, a handsome young pianist with his fiancée.
- DirectorMinh Nguyen-VoStarsThe Lu LeThi Kieu Trinh NguyenHuu Thanh NguyenSet along the southern coast of Vietnam during the French occupation in the 1940s, water is everywhere, giving life and bringing decay and rot. Kim is 15; his father and step-mother have two buffalo, their lifeline as subsistence rice farmers. During the rainy season, there's no grass and the buffalo are starving. Kim volunteers to take the beasts inland to find food. On this coming-of-age journey, Kim sees men mistreat women, men fight with men, and French taxes rob the poor. He works for Lap, a buffalo herder whose past is entangled with Kim's parents, and he makes friends who will lead him to his place in the world.
- DirectorAsh MayfairStarsHong Chuong NguyenLong Le VuNu Yên-Khê TranIn 19th century rural Vietnam, May is ready to become the third wife of a wealthy landowner. Little does she know that her hidden desires will force her to decide between living in safety and being free.
- DirectorAnh Hung TranStarsNu Yên-Khê TranQuynh NhuKhanh LeWith the brilliant Vietnamese summer as a setting Vertical Ray of the Sun is beautiful from beginning to end. The plot centres around three sisters, two of whom are happily married (or so it appears). The youngest sister is single and living with her cute older brother, whom she is desperately in love with. A second sister is married to a man who has another woman and child elsewhere whom he loves just as much as his wife -with a few conditions, she agrees to carry on with the marriage. The third sister and her husband are overjoyed to discover she is pregnant, and though he is tempted, her husband remains loyal to her. Charming, slow-paced, face value, family saga film.
- DirectorMinh Nguyen-VoStarsQuynh HoaQuy BinhKim Long ThachIn a near future Vietnam where global warming and rising seawater levels have forced cultivation to be done on floating farms, a strong-willed woman has to make a critical decision about her ex-lover, a suspect of her husband's murder.
- DirectorDang Di PhanStarsThanh Minh PhanThi Kieu Trinh NguyenHa Phong NguyenIn an old house in Hanoi, Bi, a 6-year-old child lives with his parents, his aunt and their cook. His favorite playgrounds are an ice factory and the wild grass along the river. After being absent for years, his grandfather, seriously ill, reappears and settles at their house. While Bi gets closer to his grandfather, his father tries to avoid any contact with his family. Every night, he gets drunk and goes and see his masseuse, for whom he feels a quiet strong desire. Bi's mother turns a blind eye on it. The aunt, still single, meets a 16-year-old young boy in the bus. Her attraction to him moves her deeply.
- DirectorDang Di PhanStarsDo Thi Hai YenHa Phong NguyenHoang Le CongIt is the late nineties, Vietnam is in economic turmoil and overpopulation has sparked political concern. Vu, a photography student, arrives in the sprawling metropolis of Saigon and moves into a slum neighborhood where he meets a mix of eccentric characters including Thang, a charismatic young man, who convinces Vu to get a vasectomy in order receive money from the government.
- DirectorTony BuiStarsNgoc Hiep NguyenNgoc MinhPhat Trieu HoangAlthough the hearts and goals and desires are different for everyone in a culturally-shifting Ho Chi Minh City, the stories of four separate individuals paint a vivid picture of the past, present, and future of a city eking into a new era.
- DirectorPhan Quang Binh NguyenStarsTang Thanh HaDo Thi Hai YenNinh Duong Lan NgocThe film portrays the life of a family separated from the mainstream of modern society, yet containing within its microcosm the complex layers and dramas of human relationship: conjugal life, sexual trauma, and the failures and bonds of fatherhood, brother and sisterhood. The film is about a unique social stratum in a remote place in Vietnam with unspoken traditions, customs and lifestyles. But most of all, it is the universal story of a family that like all other families have to find the strength and direction in each other to navigate their way through the choices and consequences that make up human existence. Based on Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tu's best selling short story "Boundless Rice Field", winner of the best short story prize from the Vietnam Writer's Association in 2007 and the ASEAN Literature Award recently, Floating Lives will draw audiences into the colourful daily life of unsophisticated peasants scratching out a living in the beautiful but forgiving landscape of the immense, mysterious and prescient Mekong Delta, characters whose strength, flaws and beauty, as they search for the sustenance of life and love, tear at one's heart.
- DirectorDung Luong DinhStarsNgo The QuanDo Trong TanLiving by a river, a father and son make their living by fishing every day. The little boy, Ca, contracts a serious illness. The treatment is very expensive. Will the father be able to catch enough fish to pay for it?
- DirectorBui Thac ChuyênStarsDo Thi Hai YenLinh-Dan PhamDuy Khoa NguyenA young newlywed couple in Hanoi begin to experiment with their sexual desires.
- DirectorSwann DubusPhuong Thao TranStarsLê Ánh PhongPhong grew up in a small town in the center of Vietnam - the youngest of six children. From the time he was a young boy, Phong felt like he was a girl with a mismatched boy's body. Not until he moved to Hanoi to attend university at age 20 did Phong discover that he was not the only one in the world with this predicament. His dream to 'find himself' by physically changing sex becomes a reality several years later. The movie follows Phong's struggle during these years, with excerpts from his intimate video journal, along with his encounters with family, friends and doctors - all of whom must come to terms with the boy's determination to become a complete girl.
- DirectorDiep Hoang NguyenStarsNguyen Thuy AnhThanh DuyHoang HaWhen young Hanoi couple, Tung and Huyen, discover they are going to have a baby, it inspires two desperate quests to raise money for an abortion. While Tung looks to illegal cockfighting, Huyen resorts to prostitution with a client that results in some surprising personal realizations.
- DirectorLe-Van KietStarsDustin NguyenThanh Tu NguyenThi Kieu Trinh NguyenGentle is a film set in modern-day South Vietnam and based on the short story 'A Gentle Creature' by the Russian novelist Dostoevsky.
- DirectorDang Nhat MinhStarsVân LêLuu Viet Bao DangYen HoangDuyen faces a daily struggle to care for her young son and her weakened father-in-law, while keeping secret the fact that her husband died in a battle during the war.
- DirectorDoan HoangStarsNam HoangVan TranAnne HoangAccompanied by gripping images from the war, 'Oh, Saigon' is an in-depth, compelling documentary about one refugee family's attempts to face its divided past and heal the physical and emotional wounds of the Vietnam War.
- DirectorBao LeStarsOlegunleko Ezekiel GbengaKhuong Thi Minh NgaLe Thi DungA Nigerian man moves in with four middle-aged Vietnamese women after his contract with a football team is terminated.
- DirectorMinh Quy TruongSeveral decades in the future, an astronaut on Mars contacts his father on Earth and ask him about how things were in the past, in Vietnam. Several of the Vietnamese ethnic minorities, Ruc, Kor and Hmong are explored.
- DirectorBui Thac ChuyênStarsHoang Le CongBao Ngoc Doling JulietPhuong Anh DaoRelationships between three women and their partners in a southern seaside village.
- DirectorKim Quy BuiStarsMong Giao VuThu Trang NguyenVan Thai NguyenA woman whose son does not want to carry out her burial wishes after her death. The widow of a young construction worker who brings his ashes to the village of his ancestors. A painter who loses a love only met late in life. The connections between the fates of these characters, whose stories abruptly succeed one another, only become clear over time. At the centre of the episodically linked stories in MEMORYLAND stands death and all the rituals that accompany the end of life. Such rituals are intended for the peace of both the dead and the living, but even they are not left untouched by changes in society. Skilfully composed images - a bowl of rice full of ants, an empty hammock, rotting fruit - also speak of grief and mortality, but the film also does not shy away from more mundane moments, such as when the costs of a traditional burial are broken down into specifics. Change is also made perceptible through the juxtaposition of rural and urban life: on the one hand Hanoi, with its countless construction sites and constant stream of cars; on the other the almost abandoned, run-down village. The old life still exists, but only in the land of memories.
- DirectorThien An PhamStarsLe Phong VuNguyen ThinhVu Ngoc ManhA man returns to his hometown, where he's haunted by past memories and desires.