Set in Hanoi with old apartment buildings, the film revolves around the character Thu Yen (played by Do Hai Yen) - a film director who falls into a dangerous situation when she is cheated out of all her savings while her younger brother needs money to get married, and her younger sister needs money to pay off debts due to losses in real estate investment. The film crew threatens to abandon the work they are working on if they don't get money, and the climax is when the mother with dementia suddenly disappears when her 3 children want her to sell the house...

In real life, director Nguyen Hoang Diep and Do Hai Yen have known each other for a long time since they were both young girls. The female director said that 1982 was born during a time when she really "craved" to make a film, but the previous project, The Saddest Story in the World , did not have enough potential to make it, so she wrote another story, more suitable for what she had. Although Do Hai Yen was busy with Quan Ky Nam by Leon Le (director of Song Lang ), she still supported and participated in the project from the beginning. The duo said that although there were many tragedies, the work promised to have a humorous flavor with unexpected twists. 1982 also featured Meritorious Artist Chieu Xuan, Thuy Anh... and famous German director of photography Sven Zellner.