'I couldn't stop crying, because scene is so sad'

By Kim Jae-heun

Thi Hang Do, who stars as Yen in the award-winning Vietnamese film “Yen’s Life” (2016), is straightforward and confident enough to say that she could never live the life of sacrifice of her character.

However, there was one scene that touched her. Yen climbed the mountain to look for her lost husband and it was so sad that she could not stop crying for almost two hours, she said.

“I guess I was very much involved in the character that I played and crew at the spot were worried that I may be unable to cry in the last scene because I cried so much in the scene shot at the mountain,” Do said during a Korea Times interview at Lotte Cinema in Jamsil World Tower, eastern Seoul, Thursday.

“In Vietnam, there is a tradition in which you have to take care of the family and Yen is a person who does not know how to write or read and she barely speaks of her heart. She would not talk of her issues when she is hurt and she would bury them into her heart.”

The actress said her personality is very different from Yen and so she would never understand her husband if he cheated on her.

Because Yen is such a quiet character, Do said it was difficult to portray Yen’s emotions with the eyes.

“We shot many scenes at night and I had to only act with the eyes because Yen talked so little. Also, I had to play Yen when she was 13, 20 and 38 years old and I had to do a lot of research before acting the different Yen at different ages. It was very difficult.”

The Vietnamese actress arrived in Seoul with director Tuan Vu Dinh a day before her official itinerary with Vietnam Film Day in Korea began last Wednesday. She lauded Korean staff for their professionalism and said it was honor for her to showcase the Vietnamese film.

“I hope Korean people remember me by Yen after watching this film,” Do said.

Director Dinh shared how he came up with the idea for the movie.

He said he was only 27 when he met a student from a film school whose script about her grandmother impressed him so deeply that he decided to make it into a movie.

“She was only 26 years old and my colleague at my work gave me the script,” Dinh said. “I was very surprised and touched by the story written by only a film school student.”

The film tells the story of Yen who gets married at 13 and confronts various family issues but decides to embrace them for the sake of her family’s happiness.

“In the scene, Yen’s husband travels to the faraway capital city to earn a living for the family but Yen finds out he cheats on her,” Dinh said. “However, Yen decided to hide the fact from the children because she wants the family to be happy and the children to respect their father. The movie contains themes of Vietnamese love for family and a Vietnamese woman’s sacrifice for family.”

The director said he has watched many Korean movies and is fan of Kim Ki-duk and Park Chan-wook’s films such as “Pieta” (2012) and “Old Boy” (2003).

Dinh said Korean movies focus on delivering messages to society and have strong appeal with their ideas. Vietnamese films depict stories of family values and their characters’ psychology because the movies’ scale is comparatively smaller than that of other countries.

The young director picked Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yi Mou as his role model. Zhang produces well-known films dealing with people’s psychology and family values.

Dinh said he is happy to introduce his film to Korea as part of Vietnam Film Day in Korea, which celebrates the 25th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries.