AI is participating in classes from post-production, simulation, cultural data to cost optimization, opening up the possibility of Vietnamese cinema entering the year-round production stage according to industrial standards.
From the explosion of the cultural industry to the requirement to build industry capacity
2025 closes with a new position for the cultural industry in Vietnam's economic growth. Figures that previously only appeared in international reports have now become domestic phenomena: The cultural industry contributes an average of 6.5 - 7.5% of GDP, the labor force in creative industries increases by 7.4% each year, and cinema records a series of films exceeding hundreds of billions of VND in box office revenue and approaching the threshold of 800 billion VND.
That is not only a sign of a healthy market, but also a manifestation that Vietnam is entering an era of industrialization in the creative field, which was previously more associated with spontaneity, passion and high risk.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism also recognizes cinema as a bright spot connecting culture and economy, when international art festivals are expanded in scale, talents are presented and traditional culture continues to be transmitted through new forms. All set out logic: To continue to grow, Vietnamese cinema cannot only rely on the sublimation of creativity, but must build an ecosystem capacity with supply chains, production standards, technology, supporting services and export capacity.
In that picture, artificial intelligence (AI) emerges not as a new technical trend, but as an industry restructuring factor. A few years ago, AI was mainly mentioned as a tool for creating visual effects or deepfaking in viral clips, in 2025 - 2026 it opened up the concept of AI in the film industry. That is, AI not only intervenes in the final product, but also intervenes in the production method, in the post-production chain, in the simulation process, in data analysis and market estimates.
Mr. Hang Minh Loi - founder of Lumination, the unit behind the technology representing actors in the movie "Chut Don", one of the first companies in Vietnam to comprehensively apply AI technology in movies - said that this shift is a mental leap forward.
People often say AI in movies because it is easy to visualize, for example, staging scenes or changing characters. But if expanded to AI in the film industry, the story is no longer an effect but a capacity to build libraries, simulate, and standardize production," Mr. Loi said. According to him, this is the difference between using technology as a toy of creativity and using technology as an industry.
In developed cinemas, AI changes processes in 3 layers: Automating repeating stages; optimizing costs, time, risks and redesigning supply chains. When director Denis Villeneuve directed "Dune", many segments were simulated in a virtual environment before the film crew started filming in the desert, helping them avoid having to film back and forth many times to "just as imagined".
That is, AI has now passed the automation stage and is entering optimization, even starting to redesign processes. This saying implies that world cinema is not only changing tools but also changing the way of making decisions through what is called AI.
AI gradually touches industry, supply chains and human resources
In the Vietnamese market, the question is not "will cinema keep up with AI or not" but "the position of AI is standing in the chain". Many people worry that technology is a major barrier, but AI looks in the opposite direction: "Technical infrastructure is available. What is lacking is not technology but the manufacturer's acceptance of testing.
Filmmaking is a "5-win-5-lose" field, so many directors or studios will choose a familiar crew and process because the risk is lower. But if no one accepts to try, the market will not have a breakthrough point. Vietnamese cinema has proven this many times in content creation, but has not done it in industrial creation.
One of the biggest barriers to domestic film production is higher post-production and technical costs compared to many countries in the region. Many film crews have to go to Thailand to film because production costs are lower, while when filming domestically, the cost for scenes with natural effects such as rain, fire or smoke is very expensive.
AI appeared and changed this situation when it allowed simulation of effects from many angles and different conditions without investing in large filming infrastructure. If a business only focuses on creating a "rain, sun, film storm" library, it can also sell services to most film crews. Not because of complex technology, but because they have become suppliers in the chain, completely different from the mindset of "each film crew takes care of themselves".
In Hollywood, the supply chain structure created by AI includes context data, specialized AI models, computing studios, smart post-production and technical commercialization services. Vietnam is currently only in the post-production processing part, where AI helps recreate the context and reduce real-life filming costs.
However, the long-term door lies in cultural and historical libraries. For example, when rebuilding Hoi An in the 17th century, if Vietnam does not have data on costumes, architecture, weapons or folk life, it is very difficult to compete in global post-production services. This puts cinema in a bigger problem than the economics of cultural data, not just technology.
On the other hand, mentioning industry must go hand in hand with labor. One of the common concerns when AI floods into the creative field is the ability of AI to replace humans. But with cinema, what is more obvious is that AI is gradually erasing repetitive manual steps rather than erasing creativity.
“Previously, to cut 60-minute videos into many advertising versions, editors had to track each frame, scene and character. Now AI does it in a few minutes,” Mr. Loi recounted from his own project.
This does not make the editing profession disappear, but forces the editing profession to know how to cooperate with AI, and that is also how the creative industry has been operating since the computer entered non-linear film editing 3 decades ago.
But will AI make cinema less creative? Experts say the opposite: When directors can simulate the setting, lighting, character psychology and camera movements before filming, they have more opportunities to experiment, instead of sacrificing "dangerous" ideas due to cost risks.
In essence, AI predicts - like the mechanism of the human brain predicts - but humans are still the ones who decide right and wrong. When emotion is an un quantified factor, AI cannot replace it but can only analyze it. That is the clearest boundary between technology and art. AI makes creativity safer, but humans make creativity meaningful.
If 2025 is the year Vietnamese cinema explodes revenue, then the period 2026 - 2030 may be a period of infrastructure and technology explosion.
As post-production costs decrease, technical services can be exported, cultural data is digitized, and creative human resources are supported by tools instead of being hindered by tools, cinema has the opportunity to escape the "seasonal filmmaking" cycle to move towards year-round production - the standard of industrial cinemas.
