Vietnamese films invest heavily in traditional costumes

C ANCIENT VIETNAMESE CLOTHING IS HONORED

The film Cam once impressed with the investment in costumes, as producer Hoang Quan affirmed: costumes play a key role in recreating a semi-epic space, imbued with Vietnamese character. Not only with a cast of multi-class characters such as villagers, mandarins, palace maids or members of the royal family, the film also has large scenes gathering hundreds of extras, entailing a huge amount of costumes, requiring high meticulousness. According to the producer, the highlight lies in the royal costumes of Tam and the Crown Prince - which were prepared for nearly half a year, from the design, material selection to hand embroidery. Each set consists of many layers of clothes, the inner layer is Giao Linh, the outer layer is Doi Kham, combined with traditional accessories such as Van Kien, Te Tat. This is not only an effort to restore ancient costumes but also a creative journey in the spirit of respecting history.

Some images of ancient costumes in the movie Detective Kien: The Headless Case

PHOTO: Manufacturer

Or Linh Luc: Quy Nhap Trang is set in the late feudal period - a special period when traditional culture and modern elements strongly intersected. Costumes therefore had to "shoulder" the responsibility of reflecting the movement of society through the characters. With more than 200 costumes invested in over 600 million VND, the film has created a clear aesthetic diversity. The character My Kim - representing the young, feminine intellectual class but not completely bound by old standards - owns a series of costumes that vary from traditional ao dai to European-style suits, expressing the character's inner thoughts and personal struggles through costumes.

In the film Detective Kien: Headless Case, which will premiere on April 30 this year, the producer has just revealed a "huge" investment in traditional costumes. This is also one of the rare films that brings Vietnamese traditional costumes to the big screen with a scale of nearly 1,000 completely new sets, all of which are hand-dyed, bleached, and treated to create a "modern" look. The film crew proactively built a costume system that respects the circumstances and social context of the Nguyen Dynasty. According to the producer - actress Dinh Ngoc Diep, it can be seen that the hierarchy of costumes in the film is clearly shown between classes: from commoners wearing ao tu than, to the nobility with ao ngu than silk, non quai thao, turban... Not only creating a complete layer of art, costumes also contribute to depicting the psychology and status of characters in the story, contributing to raising the audience's awareness of the cultural heritage of Vietnamese clothing.

Sharing with Thanh Nien reporters about the reason for investing heavily in costumes, director Victor Vu said: "One of the biggest attractions of historical films is the costumes. So from the beginning, I decided to invest well in the costumes and research very carefully. Although this is not a historical film, the story is related to cultural issues, so we have to balance and consider what is fictional and what is real. I have made more than 5 historical films, and the more I do them, the more I see that Vietnamese traditional costumes are very beautiful and rich. Through investing in costumes, I hope that Vietnamese traditional costumes will be honored and the audience will have the opportunity to understand more about the cultural features of a period."

N MANY CHALLENGES WHEN RESTORING ANCIENTS

It can be said that investing in costumes in films can become a factor that leads emotions, increases the depth of space, supports acting and creates strong visual effects. And investing in ancient costumes in Vietnamese films is not simply a story of tailoring, but an elaborate journey that requires a combination of cultural research, manual techniques and cinematic aesthetic thinking. This becomes especially challenging when film crews have to recreate ancient Vietnamese costumes - a heritage that is rich but lacks consistency in documentary images.

The movie Cam impresses with traditional costumes

Art director Ghia Ci Fam of the film Detective Kien: The Headless Case said that each costume was built from the step of choosing materials, colors to hand-cutting and sewing, all based on research documents such as the book "Techniques of the Annamese" and works about the Nguyen Dynasty. Mr. Ghia emphasized: "We have to manually age each costume: dyeing, fraying the fabric, processing according to the work and psychology of the character... so that the costumes on screen are both realistic and have depth. Besides, keeping the costumes compatible between scenes is also a big challenge, especially with big scenes that require a large number of costumes in a short time. This requires the costume team to coordinate closely and control the details of each accessory, stain or even fold on the clothes."

Meanwhile, Art Director Hua Man of the film Linh Mieu: Quy Nhap Trang said the difficulty came from the filming conditions, when the weather in the Central region was hot: "Traditional costumes often have many layers, especially women's costumes with ao dai, petticoats, and outer coats. If we kept this structure, it would be very difficult for the actors to move and act. Therefore, we had to simplify some details, change some materials to make the costumes lighter but still keep the standard shape."

Speaking more about the challenges of making costumes for period films, according to Hua Min, it is necessary to make sure that the costumes are not too modern but also not rigidly following the historical reconstruction style. Therefore, there must be small adjustments to make the costumes more cinematic. He emphasized: "Finally, one of the biggest challenges is how to make the costumes harmonize with the overall setting and color palette of the film, ensuring that the costumes are not too bright to overwhelm the setting, but also not too pale to be overshadowed on the screen."

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/phim-viet-dau-tu-lon-cho-co-phuc-185250410210036034.htm