Are 18+ movies with Thai Hoa really saving the Vietnamese box office?

(Dan Tri) – The movie `The Price of Happiness` starring Thai Hoa is leading the Vietnamese box office revenue with more than 19 billion VND after 6 days of official release.

`The Price of Happiness` earned more than 19 billion, foreign films cooled down

Premiering together on April 19 (premature screening), The Price of Happiness and B4S – Before `Love` are a pair of films labeled 18+ due to containing many hot scenes, opening the Vietnamese box office race for the 30th holiday.

According to statistics from Box Office Vietnam (independent box office statistical unit), last weekend, The Price of Happiness topped the box office revenue chart.

Thai Hoa plays the role of an adulterous husband (Photo: LaLaLand).

Meanwhile, B4S – Before `Love` despite its bold love/sex theme, failed to attract the audience’s attention.

Mai Thu Huyen’s fragile flower after 11 days of launch only achieved revenue of 394 million VND.

Regarding foreign films, entering the fourth week in Vietnamese theaters, the blockbuster Godzilla x Kong: New Empire has cooled down even though it still ranked second on the Box Office Vietnam chart.

The project earned more than 4.2 billion VND in the last three days of the weekend, down 60% compared to the previous week (10.2 billion VND), bringing total revenue in the Vietnamese market to 135 billion VND.

Currently, the record for this series in Vietnam is held by Kong vs Godzilla (2021) with 139 billion.

Besides Godzilla x Kong: New Empire, a number of movies that caused fever in Vietnamese theaters in previous weeks such as Exhuma: Unearthing the Tomb of the Ghost, Kungfu Panda 4 have cooled down sharply, earning less than 1 billion VND over the weekend.

The Japanese movie Thanh Xuan 18×2: Journey to You, starring Hua Quang Thanh, also dropped sharply in the second week of release and fell to fourth place on the chart with 2.6 billion VND.

Last week, the only work in the top 5 of Box Office Vietnam was Luca’s Summer.

Many reviews say that the movie The Price of Happiness achieved such good sales today thanks to the only bright spot from Thai Hoa’s impeccable acting.

On the other hand, releasing at the right time is also an advantage that helps The Price of Happiness achieve good revenue in the context of foreign films cooling down while other Vietnamese films have poor sales.

The film’s initial release date was April 26 – the same time as the movie Flip 7: One Wish, however, the crew announced to push the release date 1 week early to avoid clashing with Ly Hai and Ly Hai’s film.

This is considered the right decision, because in the commercial film industry, besides Tran Thanh, it is difficult for anyone to compete with Ly Hai.

`The Price of Happiness` can’t save the Vietnamese box office?

Despite surpassing many foreign films to top the revenue chart last week and ending the period of sluggish Vietnamese films in terms of revenue, many experts believe that the film’s opening performance includes `box office king` Thai Hoa.

Critic Nguyen Phong Viet said that it is incorrect to say that the movie The Price of Happiness saved the Vietnamese box office after the Tet movie season.

According to Mr. Viet, it is likely that the movie The Price of Happiness will lose quite a bit of money: `The Price of Happiness may appear on the list of loss-making movies in 2024. Besides, through the movie

Mr. Viet commented, The Price of Happiness is not a bad movie, but saying it is good is not accurate.

`It can be said that the film was invested very carefully and enthusiastically. However, the quality of the cast is uneven, leading to the film not being able to maintain the emotional flow throughout the entire story.

In addition, the movie script is not new, the twists (turning points or turns) in the movie are heavily contrived and illogical… From there, the story lacks an element of surprise for the audience.

These are the factors that make the viral stage of the film stagnant, not creating a widespread trend of going to the movies with audiences who like to go to theaters,` Mr. Viet shared.

Thai Hoa and Xuan Lan play a rich couple in the movie (Photo: Producer).

Sharing the same opinion, critic Le Hong Lam also frankly commented, The Price of Happiness is an outdated work in thinking and aesthetics.

`The film is young and clumsy in many ways, so even the effort to convey a positive message is still clumsy. I think if the Xuan Lan team wants to continue making movies, they must definitely handle the script stage first, otherwise it will be difficult to go a long way.`

Therefore, it is thought that even though it continues to own the `box office star` Thai Hoa, The Price of Happiness can hardly compete with Ly Hai’s Face Off 7: A Wish.

Critic Nguyen Phong Viet said that the revenue balance is tilted towards Tran Thanh and Ly Hai shows that the Vietnamese film market is still very unstable.

`We will still need a lot of Tran Thanh and Ly Hai to help audiences go to theaters more and domestic market revenue grow stronger. However, at this time, this will be a very difficult task.

Ensuring quality along with possible quantity will require at least another 3-5 years with a young generation of directors, producers and other human resources in the filmmaking industry with uniformity in ability.

Director and Meritorious Artist Bui Trung Hai said that we need to pay attention to the general quality of Vietnamese films released in theaters.

Director Bui Trung Hai emphasized that achieving sustainable, diverse, and even development is a process of striving for filmmakers as well as cultural management agencies.