Cinema of Vietnam

Cinema of Vietnam
A movie theatre in Ho Chi Minh City
Number of screens	246 (2012)
Produced feature films (2011)
Fictional	3
Animated	4
Documentary	28
Number of admissions (2011)
Total	13,500,000
Gross box office (2012)
Total	$43 million

The cinema of Vietnam originates in the 1920s, and has largely been shaped by wars that have been fought in the country from the 1940s to the 1970s. Better known Vietnamese language films include Cyclo, The Scent of Green Papaya and Vertical Ray of the Sun, all by French-trained Việt Kiều director Tran Anh Hung. In recent years, as Vietnam's film industry has modernized and moved beyond government-backed propaganda films, contemporary Vietnamese filmmakers have gained a wider audience with films such as Buffalo Boy, Bar Girls, and The White Silk Dress.

In the 1920s, a group of Vietnamese intellectuals formed the Huong Ky Film Company in Hanoi. It produced documentaries on the funeral of Emperor Khải Định and the enthronement of Bảo Đại. There was also the silent feature, Một đồng kẽm tậu được ngựa (A Penny for a Horse). The first sound films were produced from 1937 to 1940, with Trọn với tình (True to Love), Khúc khải hoàn (The Song of Triumph) and Toét sợ ma (Toét's Scared of Ghosts) by the Asia Film Group studio in Hanoi with the participation of artist Tám Danh. The Vietnam Film Group, led by Trần Tấn Giàu produced Một buổi chiều trên sông Cửu Long (An Evening on the Mekong River) and Thầy Pháp râu đỏ (The Red-Bearded Sorcerer).

Two other films, Cánh đồng ma (The Ghost Field) and Trận phong ba (The Storm), were made in 1937 and '38 in Hong Kong with Vietnamese actors and dialogue, but both were financial failures.

The government's Ministry of Information and Propaganda formed a film department around 1945 and documented battles in the First Indochina War in the documentaries Trận Mộc Hóa (Mộc Hóa Battle) in 1948, Trận Đông Khê (Đông Khê Battle) in 1950 Chiến thắng Tây Bắc (North West Victory) in 1952, Việt Nam trên đường thắng lợi (Việt Nam on the Road to Victory) in 1953 and Dien Bien Phu (1954).