Foreign actors in Vietnamese movies

      It is a bygone that Vietnamese actors who looked like western people were invited to play foreign characters in Vietnamese films. More foreigners are playing leading roles in local movies.
In “Dung Dot” (Don’t Burn) by renowned director Dang Nhat Minh, Fred, who kept martyr Dang Thuy Tram’s Diary, is played by two American actors.
Some foreigners have become familiar to Vietnamese audiences through performing in some TV series. For instant, Max Hart, the Australian owner of the Chuot Tui Café in Hanoi, has played several roles in “Trang Nuoc Ngu Ho” (Moon and Water in Ngu Ho), “Nguyen Duc Canh”, “Ngan Nam May Trang” (White Cloud Forever).
A French student, Paul Huetz De Lamps, played the leading role in “Diep Vu Thu Nhat” (First Mission).
Suresh, the director of an Indian company in Vietnam, is known from “Nuoc Mat Buon Vui” (Sad and Happy Tears), “Sai Gon Trong Trai Tim Toi” (Sai Gon in My Heart), “Ke Hoach 99” (Plan 99), “Dong Doi” (Life), and “Suong Gio Bien Thuy” (Border).
The TFS Studio’s Director Le Duc Tien went to Russia to seek Victoria Smirnova, a film student, to play the role of a Russian IT engineer named Cachia Lepsenicova in a TV series entitled “Chuyen Tinh Bien Xa” (Afar Sea Love).
A celluloid movie, “Nguyen Ai Quoc in Hong Kong”, witnesses the participation of a Chinese actress who played the role of a disguised wife of Nguyen Ai Quoc during his days in Hong Kong.
Another movie, “Hanoi, Hanoi”, a joint product of China’s Yunnan Film Studio and the Vietnam Feature Film, had a Chinese actress, Gan Ting Ting, who played the leading role in the film, a Chinese student who comes to Vietnam to seek the old boyfriend of her grandmother. The actress graduated from the Beijing Movie Institute and has been in some TV series in China.
Producer Ly Huynh invited two movie stars from Hong Kong, Gigi Lai and Max Mok, to join the cast of his “Plan 99”.
Feature Film Studio I planned to invite a foreign actress to play Tran Thi Dung in “Tran Thu Do”.
Some think that foreign actors have better acting skills than Vietnamese but in “Sai Gon Nhat Thuc” (Saigon Eclipse), Singaporean movie star Edmund Chen seemed to be not as brilliant as Vietnamese Truong Ngoc Anh and Johnny Tri Nguyen.
It is difficult for Vietnamese producers to invite foreign movie stars because of their limited funds. So even the director of “Don’t Burn”, which had investment of dozens of billion dong, was only able to invite unknown American actors.