EXCLUSIVE: After making a few critically-acclaimed romantic dramas, leading Vietnamese filmmaker Victor Vu is returning to the horror genre with Detective Kien: Headless Corpses, a big-budget mystery horror with a period setting.
Mockingbird Pictures has picked up international sales rights and will introduce the film, produced by Vietnam’s Galaxy Studio and Vu’s November Studio, to buyers here at Filmart.
Starring Quoc Huy, Dinh Ngoc Diep and Quoc Anh, the suspense horror is in post-production and scheduled for release in Vietnam on April 30 in time for the country’s Reunification Day holiday.
The script has been in development for two years, based on the novel The Lake Of Vengeance, set in Vietnam’s Northern Uplands. The story revolves around a town where the inhabitants have been mysteriously disappearing and rumours abound that there are ghosts under the lake eating human heads and leaving the rotting corpses floating on the water’s surface.
In addition to capturing the stunning scenery of Vietnam’s Northern Uplands region, the production involved meticulously crafting an ancient Vietnamese village dating back 200 years.
“The atmosphere is filled with suspense and an alluring thrill,” said the film’s producers in a statement. “Each moment builds into an atmosphere taut with anxiety, a haunting melody of suspense where the thrill is a dangerous, heart-pounding brush with the unknown.”
One of Vietnam’s best known filmmakers, Vu has most recently made a series of lush romantic dramas such as The Last Wife (2023), a period drama about a woman forced into an arranged marriage with a wealthy man; Dreamy Eyes (2019) and Yellow Flowers On The Green Grass (2015).
Mockingbird, which entered sales last year after becoming one of Vietnam’s biggest indie distributors, is unveiling a large slate of Vietnamese and Indonesian horror movies, also including Do Quoc Trung’s Exorcist: The Blood Demon and Baim Wong’s Sukma. Mockingbird’s Phong Duong, Business Director, Acquisition, Distribution & Investment, is on the ground here at Filmart in Hong Kong to introduce the slate to buyers.
