The movie 'Tam Cam' causes controversy about its quality

Funny monster images, sketchy war scenes, silly dialogue... are the details dissected in the 20 billion fantasy film that just hit theaters.

The film Tam Cam: The Untold Story was released in theaters on August 19. After three days of release, the work directed by Ngo Thanh Van received strong praise and criticism.

Compared to many previous Vietnamese films, the opinions of praise and criticism for this film are very mixed. Many people praise Tam Cam as a proud historical masterpiece of the recent Vietnamese film industry.But many audiences openly criticized the movie as bad and pointed out many "flaws".

Weak scripts are often the first thing that makes viewers unsatisfied with Vietnamese films in general.The movie script Tam Cam is no exception to this..

To create the content of the fantasy work, a group of screenwriters - including Ngo Thanh Van - worked for many months. From the foundation of a familiar fairy tale, the group created a "side story" - where the amplitude of imagination is given the opportunity to develop.The screenwriters have firmly attached and copied the characters and plot into the film such as: The evil stepmother and her daughter always try to harm Tam, Tam dies and comes back to life many times, the Buddha always appears every time Tam cries, the Prince lets her try on shoes to find a wife, the film ends with the Prince and Tam being happy forever...

In the "untold story" part, they built new characters, highlighted the image of the Crown Prince in the midst of the war against internal and external enemies to keep peace for the people, and introduced the character of the prime minister to highlight the villain...

Tam Cam movie poster.

However, the way the script handles situations is easy and predictable. The film has the ambition to build the image of the crown prince as a hero who stands up to lead the army, protecting the country from foreign invaders. But this patriotic ideal fades later because the climax of the film is resolved in a mystical battle between two monsters representing the two sides of good and evil. In which, the evil side - the prime minister - causes war just because he wants enough souls to cultivate into a human.

The film embraces many colors: romance, love story, mythology, fantasy, action... but has not yet portrayed any color properly, so towards the end, the film's flow gradually weakens.

On her personal page, reader Thao Nghi shared her feelings that it was "hard to forgive" the film's content when monsters were easily inserted to resolve all conflicts in the script. Many viewers also agreed with the opinion that the two monsters inserted at the end ruined the content that was built seamlessly from the beginning.

Sharing on social media, a reader nicknamed Mr. True said that the content of the folk tale is not tight and lacks details, but it is acceptable because it is a folk work. "When brought to the big screen, viewers need characters that are portrayed with depth in psychology, personality, and the situations presented must be more reasonable. The movie Tam Cam has not done this because the 'untold story' part is quite bland."

This audience gives vFor example, in the story, every time she faces a challenge, Tam can sit and cry, waiting for Buddha to appear. But according to him, the audience needs a Tam in the film that has more soul, is more fully developed and convincing in terms of fate and personality.

The dialogues of many characters in the film were also criticized as cliché. The dialogue errors such as: Tam waiting for the Prince to swallow the magic pearl before warning him that he will turn into a monster, Tam sobbing next to the monster speaking human language with romantic love words... were counterproductive. The details that should have been emotional and climaxing made the audience laugh.

The script still has weaknesses that prevent many actors from creating full color for the characters.

Besides the solid performance of veteran artists such as Meritorious Artist Thanh Loc, Huu Chau, and People's Artist Ngoc Giau, the character Tam played by Ha Vi and the Prince played by singer Isaac were criticized for only touching the surface of the characters, not delving deep into their inner selves.

Ha Vi acted out the scene where Tam climbed the areca tree and was cut down by her stepmother.

Tam's facial muscles and eyes, whether happy, joyful, or in pain or danger, are all the same, with unclear psychological and emotional changes. Isaac had to try to follow the flow of the film - which put on him a "loose coat" of acting - when he was both the loyal Prince and the hero of the country.

The members of the 365 group - students of Ngo Thanh Van - and actor Ngoc Trai were included in the film as supporting characters. Among them, only Jun with the role of Thuan No made an impression, while Tran Bang (singer Will), Thach Bien (ST) or Nguyen Luc (Ngoc Trai) did not create a unique feature for the audience to remember.

During the production process, the film crew succeeded in attracting the audience, especially young people, to pay attention to each character. The audience poured their affection for actors such as Ninh Duong Lan Ngoc, Ngo Thanh Van, Ha Vi, Isaac... Many people praised the acting of Ngo Thanh Van as the stepmother, Lan Ngoc as Cam when watching the trailer. However, when the film was released, the two actors received mixed opinions that they exaggerated their acting unnecessarily, making the role of Cam's mother and daughter too noisy, tiring the audience.

Of the budget of 20 billion VND, Ngo Thanh Van spent about 2 billion VND to make the part.The characters' costumes - the most controversial part since the movie was not released yet.

The film's design team transformed the four-panel dress into stylized dresses for the female characters on screen, accompanied by colorful accessories. The costumes for the male characters were also invested in, with elaborate ao dai and armor. Many people expressed that the film's costumes contributed to introducing the unique, modern features of Vietnamese fashion in the rising trend and inheriting traditional values, so this is considered a highlight of the film.

However, many viewers commented that the clothes and accessories of Tam, Cam, and the stepmother were too flashy. Although Tam and Cam's family lived in the countryside and had to catch crabs and snails to improve their meals, their clothes were neat, elegant, and brand new.

Ngo Thanh Van once shared that the budget of 20 billion - a limited number - made her realize that her film still had many shortcomings in staging and cinematography.

Many audiences believe that the movie "Tam Cam" has not overcome the common "flaws" of Vietnamese cinema in general.

There are also mistakes that do not lie in the amount of money but in the experience of the director and crew.This is what artist Truong Huyen Duc shared in a rather long article posted on his personal page after watching the movie.

This designer gave Ngo Thanh Van a score of 3 out of 10 for her first time directing a movie. According to him, if the female director had more experience and a better support team in the stages of set supervision, design, filming... then her movie could have avoided many mistakes.

"The soldiers waving around, the synchronization errors, the huge tire tracks on the dirt road when the guys ride horses... are things that should have been discovered right on set. This is probably not a budget issue but still a vision issue," artist Truong Huyen Duc commented.

The grand scenes of the royal festival, the war scenes, and the fighting scenes were still sketchy when filmed close-up. The soldiers who died in battle in the film were compared by the audience to "bread and butter" because everyone was lying on their backs, the battlefield was bloodless.

The overall image and color of the entire film are praised for being too beautiful and vibrant, making the film look more like a commercial than a cinematic one.

According to VNE