HCM CITY — Movie star and producer Ngô Thanh Vân has launched her new film projects on Vietnamese myths and folk stories in HCM City.

The first project, Thần Đồng Đất Việt (Vietnamese Prodigies), based on Vietnamese folk stories, will begin filming next month and is expected to be released in December.

The film’s screenplay is based on a comic series of the same name by young artists from Phan Thị Company.  

The work includes historic events and famous characters of different periods of the country’s history, such as Lê Quý Đôn, a poet, encyclopaedist and government official who lived in the 18th century, and Lương Thế Vinh, a mathematician and poet under the Lê Dynasty. The first of the 200 parts was published in 2002 .   

Producer Vân, owner of VAA, a film and entertainment agency, has completed a copyright deal with the publisher Trẻ and Phan Thị Company.   

The casting for the film began next week, according to Vân.  

Another three projects will be based on popular myths called Thạch Sanh (The Story of Thạch Sanh), Thánh Gióng (Saint Gióng) and Sơn Tinh-Thủy Tinh (God of the Mountain-God of the Water).

Thạch Sanh tells the story of an orphan who grows up to be a brave woodcutter and defeats monsters to save a princess.

Thánh Gióng portrays a young hero named Gióng who becomes a giant and rides on an iron horse leading his villagers to fight against northern invaders.

Sơn Tinh-Thủy Tinh explains the origin of storms and floods and highlights the will and intelligence of the Vietnamese who battled natural disasters thousands of years ago.

Vân’s film focuses on the battle between the two gods, Thủy Tinh and Sơn Tinh.

Thủy Tinh creates rain, thunder, wind and floods to defeat Sơn Tinh. Lands, crops, houses and people are destroyed.

Sơn Tinh uses his magic to transform mountains into great walls and to guide people to build dykes. The battle ends after a couple of days, with Sơn Tinh the winner.

The three film projects will begin later this year.

Last year, Vân’s latest film, Cô Ba Sài Gòn (The Tailor), was screened and honoured at the 22nd Busan International Film Festival in South Korea.

The film’s leading character, young actress Ninh Dương Lan Ngọc of HCM City, was named Face of Asia at the Asia Star Awards 2017.

She shared the title together with three actors from South Korea, Japan and Thailand.

Cô Ba Sài Gòn, a romantic comedy, is about Vietnamese women living in Sài Gòn (now HCM City) in the 1960s. Vân used young directors Lộc Trần and Kay Nguyễn, who both studied film in the US. — VNS