After the news of being selected to compete in the 2025 Oscar preliminary round, the film "Peach, Pho and Piano" continues to face controversy, in which many opinions react and disagree with this decision of the Department of Cinema.
Based on the works that participated in the competition including: "The Price of Happiness", "Flip Side 7: A Wish", "Mai", it can be seen that "Peach, Pho and Piano" was chosen because of its theme and story that focuses on national history.
“Peach, Pho and Piano” was invested and produced by the Cinema Department and Feature Film Joint Stock Company I, directed by Phi Tien Son. The film was revealed to have an investment of about 22 billion VND and earned about 20.8 billion VND after unexpectedly creating a box office fever.
Before "Peach, Pho and Piano", there were many works with historical themes selected to participate in the Oscar preliminary round such as: "Don't Burn" (2009), "Aspiration of Thang Long" (2011), "Scent of Burning Grass" (2012)...
Vietnamese cinema began submitting films to the Oscar nomination for the Best International Feature Film category in 1993, with the film "The Scent of Green Papaya" by director Tran Anh Hung. To date, "The Scent of Green Papaya" is the only Vietnamese film to make it to the Oscar nomination list for the "Best International Feature Film" category.
Overall, Vietnamese films selected for the Oscar preliminary round are often works with cultural and historical themes and national characteristics.
Experts have said that submitting a film to a competition is not simply to compete for awards, more importantly, it is to send to the world a story imbued with cultural and national identity.
Compared with the three works "Mai", "The price of happiness", "Flip side 7"..., "Dao, pho and piano" achieves the most national and cultural elements.
However, over the past few days, controversy has arisen around "Peach, Pho and Piano" as the film has rudimentary special effects, limited sound and images due to limited investment budget.
Inspired by the 60-day and night battle of "death for the country" in late 1946 and early 1947 of the Hanoi army and people, the film crew of "Peach, Pho and Piano" rebuilt the entire neighborhood as a filming location. However, the staging was theatrical and conventional, causing the scenes to not create the necessary cinematic effect.
Regardless of the script, is it advisable or not to send a war film with sound and image quality far inferior to world war films?
Talking to Lao Dong reporter about the war and historical film genre, director Bui Tuan Dung said that with the war film genre, from the setting, costumes, to weapons, equipment, explosives... hiring to stage a battle scene is very expensive.
"War films need a lot of money to achieve visual effectiveness," said director Bui Tuan Dung.
American and Korean war movies all have production budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars.
The question is, if historical and war themes are identified as one of the decisive factors in bringing Vietnamese films to the Oscar preliminary round, should these projects receive better investment right from the start of production?
Director Bui Tuan Dung said that to have good war and historical films, the whole society needs to join hands, possibly socializing funding, or private and public sectors working together.
Currently, two war films are being filmed, "Tunnel" by director Bui Thac Chuyen, or "Red Rain" by director Dang Thai Huyen, both of which are produced with socialized funding. The two projects are being invested in with passion to be released in 2025, the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the South and national reunification.
The two films are expected to bring a new look to the historical and war films of Vietnamese cinema.
