However, right at that favorable time, a big question was raised: Is Vietnamese cinema moving closer to a true industry, or is it just enjoying a "bumper crop" period that is time-sensitive? High revenue, although very encouraging, is still just the result at the output. It does not fully reflect the operating structure inside. An industry cannot be measured only by the number of tickets sold, but must be viewed through infrastructure, supply chains, knowledge accumulation capacity and international integration capacity. In those aspects, Vietnamese cinema is still revealing many worrying gaps.
Policies have not kept up with the market
Looking at the overall picture, Vietnamese cinema is developing in a special order: Market ahead, policy behind. Audience purchasing power is increasing rapidly, but the institutional framework, technical infrastructure and long-term strategy have not yet had a corresponding movement. A producer behind many hundred-billion projects once shared: "Vietnamese films are winning at the box office, but each time we make a film, it is still a self-struggle. We do not have a system strong enough to rely on, from the studio, post-production to release".
This assessment reflects a reality: The current growth largely comes from individual efforts and the inherent resilience of the domestic market, rather than the result of a well-designed industrial structure. When each project still has to solve everything from infrastructure to human resources, box office success, although impressive, is still isolated and difficult to transform into long-term accumulation capacity for the entire industry.
In countries that have industrialized cinema, the State plays an environmental constructing role through infrastructure planning and investment attraction policies. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, cinema is still mainly managed as a cultural and artistic field instead of a key creative economic sector.
Studio, infrastructure forgotten
The biggest gap in current film policy is film studios. Although the number of films has increased sharply, Vietnam still does not have a centralized, synchronous and professional film studio system. Most of the current films still have to rely on natural settings, rent out local locations or use small, technically unstandard film studios.
This approach not only increases production costs but also reduces the ability to control quality, leading to artistic compromises. Looking at neighboring countries, South Korea considers film studios as strategic infrastructure, where planning is linked to post-production areas and services for international film crews. Thailand has also turned cinema into a service industry that makes money from foreign film crews thanks to its synchronous infrastructure system. Vietnam does not lack advantages in terms of landscape or labor, but we lack a decisive policy decision to consider film studios as industrial infrastructure that needs long-term investment.
Supply chain grows but does not accumulate
Cinema is a complex ecosystem including equipment, lighting, costumes, props, logistics, legal and logistics. In Vietnam, these links exist disjointedly and lack standardization. Each film project has to "assemble" a new crew, making experience difficult to inherit and accumulate.
Director Luong Dinh Dung once warned that Vietnamese cinema is still in a "rut" due to lack of infrastructure planning, leading to difficulties in making large-scale works. When the supply chain is unstable, all risks are pushed towards individual projects. This is a point where policies can completely intervene by supporting film service businesses and building highly specialized professional standards.
Post-production bottlenecks and international release
If the studio is the foundation, then post-production is the place that determines the final quality. However, this is the weakest stage of Vietnamese cinema. Many high-grossing films still have to bring post-production (sound, color adjustment, special effects) abroad for processing. This makes the added value of Vietnamese films flow out. We are not short of talent, but we lack a large enough market and attractive enough tax incentives to retain them and develop domestic post-production centers.
Besides, the path to the world for Vietnamese films still mainly stops at film festivals that are dedicated to pure art, instead of a systematic commercial distribution strategy. International successes today are still personal efforts of private units. Conversely, Korean cinema is successful thanks to a distribution system protected by national policies, from promotion to brand distribution.
From concept to operating mechanism
All of the above issues converge on one common point: Many current policies are still heavily focused on content management but lack industrial thinking. In terms of documents, the State has identified cinema as an important field in the group of cultural industries. This is an important change in management thinking. However, the gap between strategic orientation and implementation tools is still a major bottleneck.
A real industry cannot operate based on single "self-swimming" projects. What Vietnamese cinema is lacking is not a new policy statement, but specific decisions to turn industrial thinking into real infrastructure, mechanisms and operating ecosystems.
Vietnamese cinema is facing a crossroads: Either continue to take advantage of box office heat to achieve short-term growth but lack accumulation; or accept investing in long-term infrastructure and policies to build a sustainable foundation. When the concept of "industry" has been named, it is time for us to need a corresponding operating mechanism to bring Vietnamese cinema out of its timeless successes and move towards a professional position on the international map.
