In the first months of 2025, Vietnamese cinema witnessed a series of hundred-billion-dong projects, making the domestic film market much more vibrant. In particular, on April 30 and May 1, for the first time, Vietnamese cinema had 2 domestic film projects exceeding the revenue mark of hundreds of billions of VND in the same day, namely "Detective Kien" and "Flip Side 8".
However, a sad reality is that up to now, Vietnamese films released in theaters are no longer well received by audiences, and many films are even facing the risk of great losses.
Among them, it is necessary to mention: "Am Duong Lo", "Nam Nam", "Tim Thu", "Under the Lake", "Trang Quynh Nhi", "De Men"... A Vietnamese film project currently shown at the cinema is "ut Lan: Oan Linh Duong" which also has a slow ticket sales rate despite being given many screenings by theaters.
In particular, some projects were judged as disasters, receiving mixed opinions from the audience. A typical example is The Year Ten - the project only earned more than 2 billion VND and faced the risk of heavy losses.
Many viewers commented that the film had a mischievous script and poor acting style by young actors. Therefore, the project "The Year of the Ten" is considered the lowest quality Vietnamese film project of the year.
Other films such as "Under the Lake", "Dicks" ... all have revenue of tens of billions of VND, no project has broken through, reaching hundreds of billions of VND compared to expectations. In particular, the project "Tim Doi" that was withdrawn from theaters and re-scribed on June 24 was not well received by the audience. Even when released in theaters, the film is completely inferior to foreign films.
The case of the film ut Lan: Oan Linh Duong is no exception. This project was highly anticipated before its release. Because the film is inspired by folk culture, the filmmaking team is all experienced people, a group of quite outstanding stars... When released in theaters, the project was scheduled to have a large screening with more than 2,600 screenings (according to Box Office Vietnam) and temporarily led the Vietnamese box office revenue. However, the number of tickets sold in the film is not too outstanding.
The film only earns 1-2 billion VND per day, on weekends, ut Lan: Oan Linh Du earns about 5 billion VND. Compared to previous Vietnamese films, when released in theaters on weekends, they can earn over 20 billion VND.
An alarming reality of Vietnamese film projects in recent times is that the quality of films has somewhat declined. Many projects released in theaters have been controversial from the audience. That is partly due to a decline in revenue.
Many viewers believe that Vietnamese filmmakers are taking advantage of the horror film genre to attract viewers when many previous projects that chose this theme all won big.
In addition, in recent times, foreign blockbusters have continuously hit Vietnamese theaters. Many quality projects have been well received by the audience, of which the film "Doraemon 44" has surpassed the hundred billion mark and continuously ranked No. 1 at the box office for many weeks.
Therefore, it can be seen that in the past few months, the quality of Vietnamese films has been alarming. Filmmakers also need to review their projects, be more careful in the post-production stage so that the works are released in theaters in the most meticulous and quality way.
Following numbers, taking advantage of trends and the curiosity of the audience is sometimes counterproductive and causes projects to suffer heavy losses, even losing the trust of viewers.
Vietnamese cinema in the first half of 2025 is clearly improving, however, Vietnamese filmmakers cannot be subjective because if the work is of poor quality, the audience will turn their backs and not be led by tricks.
