The producers of the South Korean hit film "Masquerade" have highlighted the various difficulties facing Vietnam and S. Korea in film collaboration.

 Producer Dong Won Yeon (left) and director Choo Chang-min (centre)

"Masquerade"  based on 19th century American author Mark Twain's "The Prince and The Pauper" is set in Korea’s medieval period era and has won a slew of awards. The film makers are now bringing the movie to Vietnamese audiences as part of the South Korea Film Festival in Hanoi.

“Masquerade" director and producer Dong Won Yeon shared his experience with Vietnamese media and movie makers at a recent seminar. He expressed the hope that there would be a Vietnamese film festival in S. Korea. He also claimed that S. Korea could help Vietnam in training actors and actresses.

Meanwhile director Choo Chang-min said producers wouldn’t gamble with huge investments in collaborative movies if profits weren’t guaranteed.

Vietnamese and S. Korean tastes and film making techniques differed, despite supposedly superficial similarities. 

Talking about the success of "Masquerade", Dong Won Yeon said the movie attracted over 12 million movie-goers because of media promotion, word of mouth and press reviews.

Dong Won Yeon pointed out a major difference was that S. Korean producers would only shoot completed scripts and the scripts were rarely changed. But in Vietnam, a completed script could still be altered vastly by the producers. He said this was unprofessional and needed to be changed in order for the crew to do their jobs properly.

Talking about arthouse and mainstream movies, Dong said that each year, S. Korean producers made about 200-250 films of which 70% of them were mainstream titles.