High-grossing movies must have good content.
Over the years, there have been many Vietnamese films with family themes. In 2024, it is estimated that films with this theme will account for half of the films released in theaters.
Looking at the general level, there are quite a few family film projects that "make a lot of money" by exploiting conflicts between family members, maternal love, and sibling love.
The movie "Sister-in-law" has nearly reached 100 billion VND in revenue (as of the afternoon of January 9, 2024 according to Box Office Vietnam). The film is about the family conflict between the sister-in-law and the brother-in-law. The work features Viet Huong, Hong Dao, Le Khanh...
Choosing a family setting with conflicts revolving around sisters, director Khuong Ngoc was praised for incorporating many Vietnamese cultural customs and giving the audience a good perspective on sisterhood and family relationships.
Among the films that won in terms of revenue (ie exceeding 100 billion VND) in 2024, there were many films that exploited family stories from different perspectives. The film "Ma da" starring Viet Huong focused on maternal love and the sacrifice of a mother. The film helped bring in about 127 billion VND in revenue for the producer.
Many audiences and film experts have commented that films like Sister-in-law, Ghost... although exploiting familiar family themes, know how to bring something new into the film, which has helped the project attract audiences.
Both refer to mother-child love, “Gap lai chi bau” has a time-travel element that few films do, while “Lat mat 7: Mot nghia ban” has a multi-line storytelling style, a complex plot: 5 small stories revolving around 1 central character. Both refer to the conflict between parents and children, the film “Co dau cua mon” incorporates a current event element about the “canvas” story, while “Mai” touches the hearts of viewers when telling the story of a single woman - a subject rarely chosen as the center on the silver screen.
The above films were all big hits, even Tran Thanh's "Mai" earned 520 billion VND, becoming the highest-grossing Vietnamese film of all time, while Ly Hai's "Lat mat 7" also earned over 481 billion VND.
It can be said that family films are a very popular topic with Vietnamese audiences. Many projects have made a lot of money and made a profit from this genre of film. However, in general, with high-grossing family film projects, the content and acting must be guaranteed, otherwise it will be difficult to attract audiences.
Not every family theme is a big win.
Although family themes are easy to touch viewers' emotions, not every project is successful.
Remember some family films like “The Heiress 2” left the theaters with a revenue of only over 6 billion VND. The film “Hai Muoi” although Quyen Linh participated but the revenue was not too high. Meanwhile, the film “Cong Tu Bac Lieu” exploiting the story of the son of Bac Lieu and the conflicts surrounding his family and career did not achieve the expected revenue, despite the expensive investment.
Obviously, family films are not a difficult topic to exploit because they are familiar and easy to touch the emotions of viewers. But obviously, this topic is not easy to "make money" if the investment in content and acting is not thorough. This topic is considered a "double-edged sword" at the box office because if you do not know how to take advantage, it can easily backfire.
The family theme is an eternal story, never old, but clearly with the available materials, each director, each producer is a different "chef". They are forced to cook according to new recipes to create the most attractive dishes to serve the audience.
