American Viets sweep Vietnam national film awards
March 2nd, 2009Vietnam’s national film awards, called the Golden Kite Awards, were given out Sunday night, and Vietnamese-American filmmakers walked off with a sizable chunk of the prizes. The Vietnamese-language Thanh Niên has a list of winners here.
Dustin Nguyen, of 21 Jump Street fame (pictured right, from the movie The Rebel), captured the best actor award for his role in The Legend is Alive (Vietnamese title: Huyền thoại bất tử), helmed by Vietnamese-American director Luu Huynh.
Luu also won the best director award for the film.
Kathy Uyen, an OC resident, walked off with the best supporting actress award for her role in Passport to Love (Vietnamese: Chuyện tình xa xứ), directed by L.A.-born and OC-based Victor Vu (see this entry).
There was no award for best film, instead the organizers gave two co-runner-up awards (the “Silver Kites”) to two films, and The Legend is Alive won one of them.
If the organizers could not decide on a best film, others were not so undecisive. The media panel awarded a Golden Kite for best film to Owl and the Sparrow, a feature film shot entirely on a handheld steadycam, by first-time Vietnamese-American director Stéphane Gauger. Owl also won in the strangely named category “best film in coproduction with a foreign country” - a madeup category first used in 2004 to give an award to The Buffalo Boy (Vietnamese: Mùa Len Trâu), directed by UCLA grad Nghiem-Minh Nguyen-Vo.
The audience voted for another Golden Kite best film award for Passport to Love.
The Golden Kites are awarded annually by the Vietnamese Motion Pictures Association. First given out in 2003, this award is new to the scene and has gone through a number of ad hoc changes over its short existence.
Vietnam has another set of national film awards known as the Golden Lotus awards, 
given out by the Ministry of Culture and Information at the national film festival, which is organized at haphazard times - not at set intervals. The last few festivals, for example, took place in 1999, 2001, 2005 and 2007.
The winner of this year’s Golden Kite for best director, Luu Huynh, used to live in OC but now makes his home in Saigon. In 2003, his short film Passage of Life (Vietnamese: Đường trần) won the audience choice award at the inaugural Vietnamese International Film Festival (ViFF) in Irvine. His feature film The White Silk Dress (Vietnamese: Áo lụa Hà Đông) was one of Vietnam’s most critically successful films, winning audience choice awards at the Pusan International Film Festival and also at ViFF. It also won best foreign film award at China’s Golden Rooster Awards, beating out eventual Oscar winner Pan’s Labyrinth.
Before that, Luu was famous for something else. In 1997, Luu was hired to work on a music video for the variety show Paris by Night, by Thuy Nga, for a Mother’s Day special issue (pictured right). On a song about the sufferings of Vietnamese women during the war, Luu played news footages of helicopters and a rice field that turned red. Thuy Nga was promptly accused of being commie; the ever-present Viet Dzung organized a burning of the video - but eventually Thuy Nga rode off all that to remain the top Vietnamese variety show.
The Bolsavik took the picture above at a party in 2007. From left: Kieu Chinh, one of Vietnam’s best known movie stars, most famous outside the Viet community for her role as Suyan in The Joy Luck Club; Tran Anh Hung, Vietnamese-French director of Cyclo, Vertical Ray of the Sun, and the Oscar-nominated Scent of Green Papaya; and the above-mentioned Dustin Nguyen; Stéphane Gauger; and Nghiem-Minh Nguyen-Vo.
Tags: Dustin Nguyen, film, Viet success, what do vietnamese-american artists do all day
March 2nd, 2009 at 8:55 am
New York Philharmonic to play in Vietnam in October 2009
(17-02-2009)
The world-acclaimed New York Philharmonic will travel to Ha Noi in October for its first-ever performances in the country.
The performances in Ha Noi are part of the symphony orchestra’s Asia tour, taking place from October 8-28, according to the director of Public Relations at the New York Philharmonic, Eric Latzky.
“All 106 members of the Philharmonic, led by music director Alan Gilbert, will perform at the Ha Noi Opera House on October 16 and 17,” he said.
Although further details about the concerts and repertoire have not yet been revealed, Latzky said the orchestra will perform some Vietnamese works.
He also intends to have a big screen outside the venue “to be able to share the concert as much as possible”.
Musicians from the orchestra will also work with aspiring Vietnamese students at the National Music Academy in Ha Noi.
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I can’t wait to watch another film by Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh. His “Buffalo Boy” was one of the greatest Vietnamese movies of all time.
BTW, could someone please write a few lines about Stéphane Gauger. Is he half Viet and half French ? Did he ever attend school, lived or worked in VN ? or he made film about VN because he just interested in our culture ?
Thanks.
Elaine
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Kathy Uyen is hot looking! I think I’m in love.
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:19 am
Since the movie “The Rebel” was mentioned here, I like to say that when it first came out I really liked it, I thought that movie had everything: action, love, romance, betrayal… I thought the Vietnamese movies really taking off with new fresh ideas and stories, until I watched “The house of flying daggers” I could not believe that the Vietnamese movie maker copied the main story lines from the Chinese movie, in both movies had a cop pretended to be friends with the girl in order to get to the opposition leader, they both had the cop helped the girl escaped from prison, they both had the captain followed the cop and the girl in the woods, and yes they both had the cop fell in love with the girl againsted the captain’s order…
What I am trying to say to the Vietnamese movie makers is this: Be creative, don’t copy others, and thank you for your hard work, I really enjoyed your movies!