Local TV ‘a crying shame'

Hard to follow: A scene from Chay An (Buying Justice), a TV show that has been criticised for being inaccessible to foreign audiences. — VNS File Photo

"Our directors and playwrights have over-used melodrama to express feelings and try to attract audiences," said Doan Minh Tuan, deputy editor-in-chief of Cinema World magazine. "I watched a film on VTV1 which featured a crying mother. Not wanting a depressing night in, I turned over to HTV2 and was met by another woman crying her eyes out in front of an altar where she was worshipping her dead husband's portrait in another film.

"I then turned over to VTV3 and watched a little girl crying in front of her mother's tomb," he said, "so I switched on VTC2, which specialises in screening Vietnamese films, to find a man also crying."

Tuan said that Vietnamese playwrights and directors seem to have a fixation in showing actors crying as a basic melodramatic device.

According to Tuan, audiences aren't always in the mood for serious melodrama and sometimes would appreciate films with a lighter touch that can ease away the pressures of daily life.

"In our films, farmers cry, workers cry, soldiers cry and even businessmen cry," he added, "But crucially, this crying has no dramatic impact and teaches us nothing."

Tuan believes that audiences prefer strong characters who are determined and energetic enough to overcome the challenges they face.

With light-hearted characters who seem to collapse into sobbing fits at the first sign of an obstacle in life, unsurprisingly television films have left audiences cold, Tuan said.

Tuan also pointed out that Vietnamese television films are too nationally specific and give few hints or clues to what is going on to a foreign audience. He gave Chay An (Buying Justice), Gio Lang Kinh (Wind Over Kinh Village) and Ngo Lo Thung (Alley of Holes) as examples.

Rich urban people

Director Tran Phuong stressed that Vietnamese television films should focus more on modern life of the majority of the population. He is disappointed by the rash of series that highlight the luxury lifestyles of rich urban people.

"I know that sometimes television film content is controlled by investors," he said, "But if we continue to feature luxury lifestyles, young people driving brand name bikes, indulging themselves in parties, I don't think we are laying much of a foundation for Vietnamese television films." Phuong believes films should concentrate on everyday life, with believable and positive minded characters.

"Don't let city people, the majority of whom actually originate from countryside areas, feel as if they were watching a foreign film when seeing a really good film featuring present day rural life in Viet Nam," he warned.

Other cinema critics believed that playwrights and directors should possess more real life experience, a wider range of charact-erisation, tones and accents and increasingly sophisticated scripts.

They should reject actors who monotonously recite lines without a flicker of emotion and not use too vulgar language.

Private companies have become increasingly involved in producing television films recently, which has facilitated higher budgets and more varied topics.

Yet this has resulted in increasing numbers of television film screenplay rights and concepts being brought from abroad, rather than a flourishing in creative Vietnamese scriptwriters.

Co Gai Xau Xi (Vietnamese version of Ugly Betty), Ngoi Nha Hanh Phuc (A Happy House) are among some 20 series of this kind, each of which lasts for hundreds of episodes.

"Modifying a foreign screenplay is not easy at all," said playwright Nguyen Quang Lap, "It is even more challenging and time-consuming than writing a new screenplay. Few serious writers take this task. Hence, most foreign screenplays have been Vietnamised by young writers happy to accept any kind of payment."

Badly transferred screenplays force actors to mimic foreign actors in their roles, and diminishes their creativity, Lap further analysed.

"I feel as if they are playing roles in a game, not a film," said TV viewer Mai Hoa. — VNS