Golden Kite 2015: 'Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass' has no rival

There is not much difference between the list of nominees for the 2015 Golden Kite Film Award and the 2015 Golden Lotus Film Award for Vietnam Film Festival. The possibility of “Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass” winning is very high.

The Golden Kite is an annual award organized by the Vietnam Cinema Association, with the purpose of honoring works of many genres such as feature films, television series, documentaries, animations, etc. However, the film awards always attract the most public attention, and at times the Golden Kite is jokingly compared to "Vietnam's Oscar".

This year, the criteria of the Kite Award is: "To highlight cinema and television works that have creative expressions, are imbued with national identity, are rich in humanistic values ​​and have positive social effects."

Based on that criteria, 18 works were shortlisted for the Golden Kite Award in the cinema category, two fewer than the Golden Lotus Award in the 19th Vietnam Film Festival held at the end of 2015.

I See Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass won the Golden Lotus Award at the 19th Vietnam Film Festival in 2015. The film has a high chance of repeating its victory at the Kite Award this year. Photo: Galaxy

The competing films include: On the peaceful peak, Yen's life, Prophet, Beauty, Road through the forest, The returnee, Quyen, Super thief, Lottery, Once upon a time, Troublesome trio, 49 days, Accidentally in love, Super naughty nanny, Colorless rainbow, Old girl with many tricks, Obsession and I see yellow flowers on green grass.

Looking at the list, the public can divide the works into three groups: the “top” group includes famous films, high revenue and media recognition; the “bottom” group includes purely commercial films, which may not be highly appreciated in terms of artistic aspects; and the “unknown” group are films that are not really widely shown.

Certainly, the two films that “swept” the 2015 Lotus Awards were: Yen’s Life and I See Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass. Victor Vu’s film, based on the novel of the same name by Nguyen Nhat Anh, not only received many positive reviews, but also achieved box office revenue of over 90 billion VND – a figure that even purely entertaining works of Vietnamese cinema cannot easily achieve.

Yen's Life won the Lotus Award at the 19th Vietnam Film Festival in 2015, but lost to Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass in the most important category, Best Feature Film. Photo: Galaxy

I See Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass also won the Golden Lotus, the highest award for cinema at the 19th Vietnam Film Festival. Meanwhile, Yen's Life also won 5 Lotus awards, and is considered a work of good quality compared to the general level of Vietnamese cinema at the present time.

The humorous and touching film Trung So by director Dustin Nguyen can also be classified as "upper class", because this is the work representing Vietnam in the category of Best Foreign Language Film at the 2016 Oscars.

However, at the time of October 2015, there was an opinion that if I See Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass had been released just one week earlier, it would have been the work that received the honor. Officially released from October 1, 2015, Victor Vu and his colleagues were forced to wait for their chance at the 2017 Oscars according to the rules set by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Films like Quyen, Troublesome Trio, Super Thief, Once Upon a Time, 49 Days, Accidentally in Love, Super Nanny, Colorless Rainbow, Old Girl, and Obsession are all films that are more commercial than artistic, and have been widely shown throughout the past year.

Among these, there are films that have received a lot of criticism from the press and the public. But there are also works of good quality, but for various reasons, they have not reached a wide audience. For example, the case of Super Thief directed by Ham Tran.

Although it is considered to have filmmaking techniques that are no less than Hollywood, the work could not make a splash at the box office during the crowded Tet movie season, which also has the participation of many Chinese and Hollywood blockbusters. The opportunity for Super Thief at the 2015 Golden Kite Awards may lie more in categories related to filmmaking techniques.

Truong Giang and Nha Phuong’s 49 Days once caused a stir in public opinion thanks to the “fake love story” between the two main actors, as well as achieving high box office revenue. However, many people believe that the content of the film is too similar to a Korean film, Hello Ghost (2010). That could be a big obstacle in 49 Days’s conquest of the Golden Kite Award this year.

The last and most special group of films are State-invested films, including On the Peak of Peace (revolving around the lives of the Cham people), The Prophet (about the time Uncle Ho was in the Viet Bac resistance base from 1947 to 1951), My Nhan (a historical film about the Trinh - Nguyen conflict), Duong Xuyen Rung (the journey of a group of liberation soldiers who got lost in the deep forest to overcome the Junction City sweep in 1967 in the Southern battlefield), and Nguoi Tro Ve (a film about the tragedies of Vietnamese women after the war ended).

Although the theme of war is not new, The Returner still evokes strong emotions in audiences. Unfortunately, the film was not widely shown commercially last year. Photo: Army Film Studio

The film My Nhan was widely shown, but is more remembered for the scandal of costumes printed with the cartoon Lion King. Among these, the Returned by director Dang Thai Huyen has the potential to cause surprise. The film was adapted from the short story Nguoi o wharf song Chau by writer Suong Nguyet Minh and made many audiences shed tears at the premiere in late summer 2015.

In fact, 2015 was a relatively prosperous year for the country's cinema industry, with domestic films earning hundreds of billions of dong in revenue. Private film studios also boldly joined the game, joining hands with the state to create attractive works, ensuring both artistic and financial factors.

However, the difference in quality between the works competing for the 2015 Golden Kite is still noticeable. If I see yellow flowers on the green grass wins the Golden Kite this year, it will not be a surprise.

18 films competing for the 2015 Golden Kite Awards are scheduled to be screened free of charge to the public from April 13 to 17 at four cinema complexes in Hanoi: the National Cinema Center, August Cinema, Ngoc Khanh Cinema and CGV - Mipec Tower.

The head of the film jury is director and People's Artist Dang Nhat Minh. According to the plan, he and his colleagues will monitor and score the group of works starting from April 11.

The 2015 Kite Awards ceremony will take place on the evening of April 20 and will be broadcast live on VTV2.

According to Zing