For decades, Vietnamese films have been mainly seasonal, with Tet being the biggest season of the year.
Movement
More than 10 years ago, the Tet holiday brought in more profits than expected for slapstick comedies. In 2012, despite the media labeling “Hello Miss Ba” a disaster, the film still made a fortune when it was released. After only 1 week of release, the film earned 25 billion VND. This revenue in 2012 was the dream of all film producers.
The easy profits of the lowbrow comedy genre have caused cinemas to suffer from a series of disastrous works of this genre. During the 2013 Tet film season, a series of low-quality works competed to be released: Love you, dare not, Bay vao co mong, Nha co 5 nang tien...
The trend of mass production of low-budget, poorly scripted comedies to rush into theaters and make a profit after a few days of screening has once worried experts. But, as director Charlie Nguyen said, audience tastes are the most changeable, the most elusive, and the most unpredictable thing.
A series of disastrous comedies with sketchy scripts and causing frustration have gone bankrupt one after another, suffering huge losses in the Tet market in particular, and the Vietnamese film market in general.
By 2019, the Tet film market marked a vibrant and diverse scene in terms of genre and theme, with the eye-catching martial arts performances of “Hai Phuong” (released after the Tet holiday), to the light humor of “Cua lai vo bau”, “Trang Quynh”... In which, “Hai Phuong” with its professional and beautiful martial arts performances reached the revenue milestone of 200 billion VND.
Starting in 2021, Tran Thanh "jumped" into the Tet film market as a director and producer and took this season by storm in an unprecedented way.
The film “Bo Gia” co-directed by Tran Thanh was supposed to be released on the first day of Tet 2021, but due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the film had to postpone its release date until early March, and immediately swept all screenings, earning more than 400 billion VND.
Since then, Tran Thanh has had a work shown for Tet every year, and only he has broken the record he created in this market. In 2023, Tran Thanh's "Nha Ba Nu" dominated the box office, setting a series of revenue records, reaching the milestone of 475 billion VND.
In 2024, Tran Thanh's "Mai" will be even more popular than "Nha Ba Nu" when it reaches 550 billion VND in revenue, accounting for the majority of the total annual revenue of Vietnamese films of 1,900 billion VND.
It can be said that Tran Thanh is the biggest "change" in the Tet film market since 2021 when "Bo Gia" was released. He continuously created box office miracles, changing the entire Vietnamese film market share, when experts said that the current Vietnamese film market is divided into: Tran Thanh, Ly Hai and the rest.
Tet movie revenue
In 2025, the Tet film market will be a race between 3 Vietnamese films: The Four Guardians (Tran Thanh), Billionaire Kiss (Thu Trang) and Love by Mistake (Director Nguyen Quang Dung - Diep The Vinh).
Tran Thanh’s “The Four Guardians” is still a “force” at the Tet box office, the film has earned more than 200 billion VND. However, Thu Trang’s humor and fun in “The Billionaire Kiss” has helped the film earn a good revenue, not too inferior to Tran Thanh.
“The Billionaire Kiss” promises to surpass 100 billion VND in revenue, while “The Four Guardians” will help Tran Thanh earn over 300 billion VND. This is still a rare revenue level for Vietnamese films.
