Drama, Horror, Epic And Documentary Make Up Vietnam’s Five Picks At Busan 2026

Every October, as the sea breeze turns crisp, fans of Asian cinema look toward the port city of Busan and the red carpet outside the Busan Cinema Center. The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has long been one of the “barometers” of measuring the vitality of Asian cinema. For Vietnamese filmmakers in particular, BIFF has always been a welcoming launchpad where many strong works found their footing, from The Third Wife, Rom and Goodbye Mother to Glorious Ashes, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell and Ky Nam Inn.

At the 31st BIFF, Vietnamese cinema appears in four different feature film sections for the first time. Even more striking, the five films selected this year follow no single formula. They stretch across a wide spectrum, from deeply felt drama to a horror blockbuster and an epic, all the way to an experimental documentary (at BIFF in 2019, Vietnam also had five titles in the program, but they were spread across just two feature film sections, alongside two short films).

Producer Trần Thị Bích Ngọc will also sit on this year’s jury, alongside major names in Asian cinema such as Zhang Yimou and Bi Gan. She is the force behind The Third Wife, Glorious Ashes and Cu Li Never Cries, and she also provided production support on Hollywood blockbusters including The Quiet American, Avatar The Last Airbender and Transformers Dark of the Moon.

Together with the variety of the five films, this sends an optimistic signal that our film ecosystem is working at many levels at once. Vietnamese directors are gradually stepping out of their comfort zone. They no longer feel bound to stereotypical themes of poverty or the scars of war, and they are telling stories across a wider range of genres.

1. 1982

• Director: Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp
• Genre: Drama
• Category: Vision

It would be no exaggeration to say that Nguyễn Hoàng Điệp’s return is one of the most anticipated events among Vietnam’s independent filmmakers. More than a decade after Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere screened at the 19th BIFF, she is finally presenting her second feature, 1982.

1982 has been selected to compete in Vision - Asia, a section dedicated to independent, experimental voices from across the continent. It is easy to read the film as a collection of personal reflections on the ups and downs of life as a filmmaker. Set during a winter in Hanoi, it follows a woman director who is struggling to finish her film. Her son needs to prepare for the university entrance exam, her younger brother needs money for his wedding, and her younger sister needs money to pay off a failed investment. Then one day, her elderly mother, who suffers from dementia, disappears after promising to sell the family house and divide the proceeds. The search for her mother uncovers countless tangled grievances within the family, before the story finally arrives at reconciliation.

Audiences can expect what has become the director’s signature, a complex inner world drawn largely from personal experience, and a deeply feminine perspective that is restless and torn but also remarkably poetic. Beyond that, 1982 shows the rare patience of a true storyteller. In a market where production is pushed ever faster to keep capital turning over, a director spending so many years nurturing and refining a single project shows absolute respect for the language of cinema.

2. The Red Thread

• Director: Hàm Trần
• Genre: Horror
• Category: Midnight Passion

Director Hàm Trần has never shied away from challenging himself with variety. He has made psychological drama (Journey from the Fall), romantic comedy (How to Fight in Six Inch Heels), children’s science fiction (Maika, the girl from another planet) and horror (Devil’s Diner), and he consistently strikes a fine balance between Hollywood level entertainment and Vietnamese cultural settings. In contrast to the decade of incubation behind 1982, he returns with Sợi Chỉ Đỏ just one year after Tử chiến trên không. Inspired by the East Asian belief in the red thread of fate, this body horror film centers on a fanatic who suddenly discovers an unnatural third eye on his forehead. From that moment, he is linked to the world beyond and is warned every time a murder takes place.

If you look back through BIFF’s history, you will notice that Midnight Passion is something of a house specialty. It is where audiences go for a good scare, and where many celebrated horror, thriller and bloody action films from around the world have been honored, including I Saw the Devil, The Raid, It Follows, The Wailing, The House That Jack Built, Detention and The Substance (surprisingly, Train to Busan was never screened at BIFF). For a Vietnamese horror film like The Red Thread to catch the eye of BIFF’s programmers may be exactly the kind of validation our film industry needs right now, as the horror genre in the domestic market grows increasingly saturated with works of below average quality.

3. Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret of the First Emperor

• Director: Nguyễn Phan Quang Bình
• Genre: History, Adventure, Action
• Category: A Window on Asian Cinema - the section showcases new works by Asian filmmakers.

After a not so successful run at the domestic box office, Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret of the First Emperor is starting its “overseas expedition” with a global premiere in the Gala Presentations program at the Toronto International Film Festival. Next, Nguyễn Phan Quang Bình’s film will screen in Busan, in the A Window on Asian Cinema section, which is reserved for new works from Asian filmmakers.

Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret of the First Emperor is an epic mixed with action adventure, based on the legends and mysteries surrounding the death of Emperor Đinh Tiên Hoàng. It follows his loyal officials as they escort 99 coffins along different routes in order to hide the location of the king’s true tomb from hostile forces. Setting the question of quality (which is low) aside for a moment, the film’s presence at BIFF is a rather interesting case. For a long time, this type of film has automatically made us think of Hollywood’s medieval blockbusters, or of Chinese martial arts stories and tomb legends. Vietnamese cinema at international festivals, on the other hand, tends to bring to mind small scale independent works. Spirit Guardians raises a question. What does a Vietnamese historical legend, with its own battles, weapons, dynasties and myths, look like when it is placed in the middle of an international film program?

4. Hearing

• Director: Lê Bảo
• Genre: Drama
• Category: A Window on Asian Cinema

All you need to do is glance at the list of nine countries and territories behind the production to grasp the enormous scale and international ambition of Hearing. Lê Bảo won the Special Jury Prize in the Encounters section at the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival for his debut Taste. Now he brings BIFF a deeply personal and poetic story.

The third film in Lê Bảo’s “senses” series, after Taste and the short film Scent, Hearing follows Ninh, a mechanic who installs noise meters in public spaces and homes. Living with his mother, Ninh is haunted by memories of his ex-wife and young children, and he longs to repair the broken relationship between his parents. The more he measures the noise outside, the more he has to face the silences that haunt his own relationships.

In an urban world that never stops buzzing, where noise has become a form of pollution, the director uses the image of a noise meter to show a sharp insight. The silence between people is the most “deafening” sound of all, and no device can measure it. Hearing may well be a quiet, contemplative letter, or a voice message, that the director sends to the people and places closest to him.

5. Baby Jackfruit Baby Guava

• Director: Nông Nhật Quang
• Genre: Documentary
• Category: Documentary Showcase

After traveling to some of the world’s most prestigious documentary festivals and leaving its mark in the first half of 2026, including Visions du Réel (where it won the Special Jury Prize in the Burning Lights section) and Hot Docs, Baby Jackfruit Baby Guava is now arriving in Asia. Of the five Vietnamese films at this year’s BIFF, it is probably the most intimate.

The central question the film asks is direct but far from easy to answer. What does a contemporary Vietnamese family really look like? Over seven years, director Nông Nhật Quang patiently pieced together old family tapes and photographs, recorded phone calls and fragments from personal diaries to build a small, intimate chronicle. It is a multilayered story about motherhood and about a baby who arrives unplanned. It is also about the director himself as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, his mother with her deeply traditional hopes for a “model” family, and his sister, who has long struggled with mental health issues and is now preparing to welcome baby Guava into the family.

The film has been praised for its warmth and its raw honesty. The critic Alexandre Astruc once said that in cinema, the camera should be a pen. For Nông Nhật Quang, the camera works more like a catalyst. It does what an ordinary conversation sometimes cannot, bringing family members to sit down together, look back, and try to name the wounds that have lingered for too long and that they have grown used to hiding.