Director of the movie "Tunnels" talks about "Red Rain"

“Red Rain” is a film by the People’s Army Cinema, directed by Dang Thai Huyen, telling a fictional story based on historical events at Quang Tri Citadel in 1972. The film features many young actors, from the 9x, 2000 generations…, some even appearing for the first time in a film project.

Director Bui Thac Chuyen is a man who has just stepped out of the days when his film “Tunnel: Sun in the Dark” was continuously successful in theaters. Premiered right before the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification, the film earned about 170 billion VND in theater tickets, an unprecedented number for a historical war film.

“Tunnel: Sun in the Dark” is a film entirely invested by the private sector, and this is also the first time a historical film about a revolutionary war has been made with commercial capital, not state capital.

Sharing about the film “Red Rain”, director Bui Thac Chuyen said that Vietnamese history has many touching stories about people in war. He hopes that the success of historical war films in the past two years will become a film series, a film genre so as not to be ashamed of the previous very good films, filmed very carefully, with the dedication of predecessors.

“If from films like this, we can return to a better period of revolutionary and historical cinema, it would be truly valuable, to be able to counterbalance commercial films, purely for entertainment, or become an important part of cultural life in Vietnam,” the director confided.

Director Bui Thac Chuyen also shared that he hopes "Red Rain" will be successful in theaters, although he does not dare to give a predicted revenue figure. However, when watching the film, he understands that the entire crew and producer have encountered many difficulties. Because, from his experience making war films, he understands that making a war film on the ground is very difficult, even the most difficult. In "Red Rain", both the scale and difficulty are much more difficult than "Tunnels".

"I don't dare to make a film about fighting on the ground because I don't have enough capacity to maintain a long-term ground war. I only dare to fight a short battle in 'Tunnels'. If I make a film about fighting on the ground, yesterday's battles are almost the same as today's. The filmmaker must create a feeling that is both realistic and new, making the audience curious about what will happen next and how much change there will be. Even in 'Tunnels', we have to create different battles to avoid boredom, such as going down the tunnel, spraying poison gas, spraying water, fighting on the riverbank...", he said.

To be able to compare with foreign war films, according to director Bui Thac Chuyen, domestic filmmakers are still facing many difficulties and have to make great efforts. The difficulty comes from the filmmakers' goals for the film, big ambitions will go far. And the audience will be the one who decides the success or failure of the film.

However, according to him, investment and perspectives on historical filmmaking have begun to change. There are different perspectives on war, and in the future, perhaps future generations of filmmakers will have even different perspectives.

Talking about the strength in the film, director Bui Thac Chuyen commented that Dang Thai Huyen is a female director of the next generation, but has made war films like male directors, and he finds interesting the views of men and women on war. "I see in the film, the strength of women is no less than that of men, sometimes even stronger than mine" - Bui Thac Chuyen said.

However, he also commented that in war films, each person's way of thinking is different. In "Red Rain", for a female filmmaker, the soldier's psychology can be softer, compared to the harsher and more fierce reality in Quang Tri as he knows. "I always remember the story of a friend who went to the Quang Tri battlefield, was assigned to a squad leader who was a veteran soldier, but had only fought here for 3 days. To see how harsh the battlefield was at that time" - the director recounted.

The director of the film “Tunnel” also commented that the actors and crew of “Red Rain” were very dedicated and they themselves felt the need to have a way of making films that was not like entertainment films. The film has small but touching details, at the same time there are some quite vivid and realistic details.

According to director Bui Thac Chuyen, for a war film to reach the audience, it needs to have a truly fundamental, fundamental historical perspective. Because nowadays, the audience that filmmakers always want to target is young audiences, and young audiences today do not simply come to watch and accept everything that filmmakers put forth. The young generation today is a generation of theorists and explorers. They can search the internet, Chat GPT to find out everything about knowledge and life. In fact, young audiences have many more ways to investigate and understand than in the past. Second, the filmmaker's approach to history must be modern, must have the perspective of today's youth, must be truly objective and not propagandistic.

Director Bui Thac Chuyen also said that, if possible, we should create a historical lesson so that young people can feel it, for example, we can bring young people the positive energy of patriotism, of what our ancestors did, or in addition to highlighting the noble sacrifices, let young people see deeper meanings.