Huynh Lap's clumsy movies still lead the box office

Việt NamViệt Nam21/02/2025

“The Ancestors’ House” has a lot of spice, but lacks harmony. Huynh Lap is greedy when using dialogue to lead the story and the audience’s emotions, but the way the film resolves conflicts is still clumsy.

Ancestral home Marking the return to the big screen of the name Huynh Lap after 5 years of absence, since Blind Mage: Who is dead raise your hand (2019). This time, he is still loyal to the spiritual and comedic colors he has pursued in his web-drama projects over the past time. However, the theme is placed at the center. Ancestral home still family love

The story opens in the Huynh family, with many generations living together in the ancestral house, with a tradition of selling banh xeo. The main character of the film is My Tien (Phuong My Chi), a Gen Z content creator who left her hometown for the city many years ago due to conflicts with her family.

Having "no idea" about content to attract viewers, Tien and her best friend ventured back to their hometown to find ideas.

The story is full of problems but lacks solutions.

Things take a turn when Tien discovers that she can see the ghost of her brother Gia Minh (Huynh Lap), who died in an accident many years ago. To help his soul be liberated, she must help him fulfill his unfinished wishes when he was alive. One of them is to protect the family home that is being fought over by family members.

The idea of ​​a connection between two worlds in Ancestral home not new, reminiscent The story of me and the devil becoming one by Trinh Vy Hao. While property disputes or conflicts between siblings are also familiar topics on the Vietnamese big screen, most recently, Sister in law of Khuong Ngoc has partly recreated.

Huynh Lap's film raises many issues, from family conflicts, the negative impact of prejudice on an individual, male chauvinism leading to tragedy, to preserving culture and traditional customs...

The ancestral home, home to many generations of the Huynh family, appeared peaceful on the surface but in reality contained smoldering conflicts. The biggest problem stemmed from the patriarchal ideology that had haunted them for many generations. My Tien, having suffered injustice and slander since she was young, had a falling out with her family and chose to leave. Being a girl, she was not respected, she was seen as the source of all bad luck, indirectly causing the death of her father and brother.

Ancestral House directed by Huynh Lap.

Because of that, My Tien's decision to return to her hometown opens up a journey to resolve the conflicts and problems she has accumulated, while also healing the mental trauma she has endured over the years. This premise seems smooth, but from here the story line breaks down a lot.

The emotional knots are recreated quite superficially, heavily illustrative, from the resolution of the conflict between My Tien and her mother and brother, to the change in thinking of a girl who has lacked affection and understanding for many years. Tien is angry at her mother because she was scolded for being too busy playing and causing trouble, angry at her brother because he was beaten, angry at her relatives for spreading bad rumors about her...

The whole thing is told quickly through flashbacks, raising big questions about the characters' motives and personalities. The film raises many issues, but ultimately resolves the knot by... letting the people involved tell the truth. At the same time, Huynh Lap uses dialogue with the intention of bringing a "multi-dimensional view" to both My Tien and the audience. But in reality, the film's dialogue is continuous, long-winded, and action-oriented.

The unsophisticated morals are tear-jerking, while the story becomes increasingly entangled in exaggerated and lengthy situations. The characters’ frustrations, along with the periods of anger at their families, suddenly become redundant, even meaningless. Because they might not have existed if the older brother had decided to share with his younger brother sooner.

On the other hand, Ancestral home But it still doesn't explain why Gia Minh had to keep them in his heart for all those years, causing problems to keep piling up. The issue of male chauvinism, or many prejudices set out at the beginning of the film, also gradually reached a dead end.

Huynh Lap brings web drama to the big screen

Borrowing the spiritual theme, Huynh Lap had the idea of ​​exploring the hidden corners of family relationships. However, the way the script was developed was limited, while the form Ancestral home like a web-drama because it lacks cinematic quality.

The Ancestor's House rose to the top of the Vietnamese box office on the first day of release.

The characters in the film have many problems, from the forced development of the female lead, to the construction of the evil, ungraceful supporting roles. Their actions lack logic, while the incidents that befall the Huynh family are also clearly staged.

The editing style has not shown smoothness when alternating between horror, comedy and tragedy, causing the viewer's emotions to suddenly be interrupted. The situational comedy or dialogue that the director used is also familiar, typically My Tien's response to her rude relatives, seemingly copied from the "war of words" in Uncle Cuc's son.

Instead of letting the images tell the story, Huynh Lap made the mistake of using dialogue to lead and influence the viewer's emotions. It is worth mentioning that the dialogue in the film is still "textbook", sometimes naive. Typically, in the scene where the mother is hospitalized for emergency treatment, My Tien eagerly asks the doctor about the cost of surgery and receives the response "It will cost a lot of money". Or when going to the kitchen to make banh xeo to invite the whole family, the character's dialogue is like reciting a lesson. The cultural insertion is a commendable idea, but Huynh Lap probably needs to express it more naturally and subtly.

Phuong My Chi, in her first foray into cinema, left a good impression with her simple appearance. The little girl My Tien appeared stubborn and vulnerable, but on the other hand, emotional, stubborn but soft-hearted, and quick to tears.

However, Phuong My Chi is still immature in the way she portrays the character's emotions, and on the other hand, she struggles to master the psychological lines of the role. The character's trauma absolutely does not need to be told through dialogue like "Mom, are you waiting for me to come home? So do you love me?". In many scenes, she shows her limitations in her inflexible eyes, and sometimes acts instinctively, lacking restraint, especially in scenes of fear, screaming, and despair.

Huynh Lap, in the role of the brother who is full of sorrow because of his untimely death, has a very theatrical performance. Meanwhile, the performances of Hanh Thuy and Huynh Dong are quite well-rounded, but their characters lack room to act.

Character design in the movie.

Due to budget issues, the visual part Ancestral home did not really create an impression, the special effects also revealed shortcomings. However, the scene was recreated relatively well. Some songs performed by Phuong My Chi in the film might have left an emotional effect, if they had been inserted more naturally.

The disappointment is that Huynh Lap, because of his greed for "twist on twist", turned the ending of the film into a mess, with forced details. This makes Ancestral home What could have ended neatly with a little healing message, turned into a drama stage, where the noise and chaos exhausted the audience.


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