TV series and web-dramas join the Tet season
Compared to the previous period, this year's Tet film market no longer has the scene of "hundreds of flowers blooming" but only revolves around a number of typical projects. In the television segment, the most notable is "Nang Dau Miet Vuon" broadcast on THVL1. The film has a strong Western color, exploiting the topic of marital pressure on rural women, conflicts between urban and rural lifestyles, but is told in a gentle, humorous tone.
The story revolves around Mr. Hao (Hoai Linh) and his daughter Xuan, nearly 30 years old, who does not want to get married yet. While Xuan prioritizes her career, in her hometown, the story of "granddaughter unmarried" becomes an invisible pressure from relatives and neighbors. The film does not push tragedy to a climax but chooses a simple way of telling, incorporating messages about starting a business from agricultural products, about true life values and daring to take responsibility for their choices.
Besides, the project "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter" although released on a digital platform is still considered a project that intersects television and web-drama. The cast Hoai Linh, Van Trang, Mac Van Khoa, Quach Ngoc Tuyen create good identification effects, the content is aimed at the family - love - humor motif, true to the spirit of "watching to relax at the beginning of the year".
In the web-drama segment, the Tet race continues to be exciting with a series of familiar films. Huynh Lap's "Cau Ut Cau Con Cuc" part 5 returns with a multi-generational family story, continuing the folk-comedy style mixed with modernity. Vo Tan Phat's "Cuc Suc Family - Welcoming Tet 2026" continues to exploit the poor working life, noisy but emotional neighborhoods. Meanwhile, "Than Tai Truyen" chooses a newer approach when "humanizing" the images of Than Tai, Tho Dia, Than Nong... in a youthful style.
The common point of Tet web-dramas is that they all gather familiar actors such as: Le Giang, Le Duong Bao Lam, Huynh Lap, Vo Tan Phat... The content revolves around family, beliefs, villages, is easy to watch and suitable for quick entertainment tastes on digital platforms.
Overall, Tet 2026 films are not many but quite uniform in topic: all are directed towards everyday life, familiar spaces, prioritizing family elements and light entertainment.
Expecting quality even in small quantities
The sharp decrease in the number of Tet movies inadvertently creates greater expectations about quality. Today's audiences are no longer easygoing with products that are only "noisy for fun". They require the story to be in-depth, the characters to have reasonable psychology and the message to be subtle enough.
With television dramas, the biggest challenge is to avoid falling into the beaten path: lengthy, didactic scripts, lack of climax. If only stopping at a safe, easy-to-watch level, it is very difficult for the film to create a long-lasting impression after the Tet season. Meanwhile, web-drama faces the opposite problem: Too much emphasis on making people laugh quickly, easily falling into "excessive" segments, noisy dialogue, even offensive.
This year's competition is also not only between Tet movies, but also competition with international entertainment platforms. When audiences are familiar with foreign series with high quality, fast film pace, tight scripts, Vietnamese films are forced to raise standards if they do not want to be left behind.
Another challenge is the "lifespan" of the film. Many web-dramas reach millions of views in the first few days, but are quickly forgotten after Tet due to lack of depth of content. This poses a requirement: Tet movies need not only to be fun, but also to be "real" enough for viewers to remember after laughter.
TV series and web-dramas for Tet 2026 are entering a natural screening phase: Fewer projects, but higher quality pressure. In the context of fierce competition, only works that are sincere enough, sophisticated enough and touch life emotions can stay long in the audience's memory, instead of just being entertainment to "watch for fun" in the first few days of the year.
