{"id":47605,"date":"2024-03-02T09:18:58","date_gmt":"2024-03-02T17:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sweet-pascal.52-27-215-206.plesk.page\/state-funded-film-set-during-indochina-war-attracts-surprising-interest\/"},"modified":"2024-03-02T09:18:58","modified_gmt":"2024-03-02T17:18:58","slug":"state-funded-film-set-during-indochina-war-attracts-surprising-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/state-funded-film-set-during-indochina-war-attracts-surprising-interest\/","title":{"rendered":"State-funded film set during Indochina war attracts surprising interest"},"content":{"rendered":"

A state-funded film about a 1947 battle between French troops and Vietnamese resistance forces has attracted a surprising level of interest from theatergoers who have lined up to watch the movie and requested a wider distribution.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDao, Pho va Piano\u201d \u2013 or \u201cPeach, Pho and Piano\u201d in English (with pho referring to the famous Vietnamese noodles) \u2013 was released on Feb. 10, the first day of Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year holiday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vietnam\u2019s government often uses the state budget to fund films about historical topics for propaganda purposes. But those movies often fail to attract viewers and are usually pulled from theaters after a short run. They sometimes later air on state television.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite little advertising, word got out on social media that the film was worth watching. Last week, ticket requests crashed the website of Hanoi\u2019s National Cinema Center and long lines were seen outside a Ho Chi Minh City theater.<\/span><\/p>\n

Battle of Hanoi<\/p>\n

The movie is set during the final days of the Battle of Hanoi, the first battle of the First Indochina War fought between the French and the Viet Minh, an independence-seeking coalition led by Vietnamese Communists.<\/span><\/p>\n

A key scene in the movie shows a barricade in Hanoi\u2019s ancient quarter where Vietnamese militiamen use lunge mines \u2013 a type of suicide bomb used against tanks \u2013 to resist an attack by French forces.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The self-sacrifice allowed Viet Minh units to withdraw from the city to a region north of Hanoi, where they regrouped and later defeated the French.<\/span><\/p>\n

A scene in the film \u201cDao, Pho and Piano.\u201d (Thanhuytphcm)<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s director, Phi Tien Son, noted that Vietnam has produced a dearth of good historical films over the years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe country\u2019s cinema industry still owes the audience a lot regarding films about historical topics,\u201d he told Vietnam Television. \u201cI hope my colleagues will gradually pay that debt in the coming time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hanoi resident Nguyen Hoang Anh said the movie does a nice job of depicting the elegant, tragic and romantic characteristics of living in Hanoi in the 1940s.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But there are unrealistic battle scenes, some over-the-top theatrical dialogue and many illogical details, she told Radio Free Asia. The filmmakers should have made it clear that the story was a fictional reenactment of an historical event, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat worried me is that the film made viewers wrongly think that the French planned to kill all residents and whoever stayed back [in Hanoi] would die,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy family \u2013 both my mother\u2019s and father\u2019s sides \u2013 lived through that time in Hanoi,\u201d she said. \u201cIn fact, there were options for those who decided to stay or leave.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Wider screenings<\/p>\n

The government spent 20 billion dong (US$812,000) to make the film, but didn\u2019t allocate much funding for advertising or distribution, according to the state-affiliated <\/span>VietNamNet<\/span>, one of the country\u2019s largest news portals.<\/span><\/p>\n

In response to demand, the few theaters showing the movie have increased the number of screenings from three times per day to 15 daily, according to state media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As of Feb. 20, it has generated a revenue of more than 1 billion dong (US$40,600) \u2013 a surprising amount for a government-funded historical film.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week, distribution company BETA Media agreed to show the movie in theaters nationwide, the head of Vietnam\u2019s Cinema Department, Vi Kien Thanh, told <\/span>VietNamNet<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tin t\u1eeb RFA Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A state-funded film about a 1947 battle between French troops and Vietnamese resistance forces has attracted a surprising level of interest from theatergoers who have lined up to watch the movie and requested a wider distribution. \u201cDao, Pho va Piano\u201d \u2013 or \u201cPeach, Pho and Piano\u201d in English (with pho referring to the famous Vietnamese …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":47606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[82,239],"tags":[246,251],"class_list":["post-47605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","category-vietnam","tag-english","tag-rfa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}