After the third draft of “Bui doi Cho Lon” or Chinatown was mistakenly uploaded on Internet, the filmmaker has called for police to investigate and find culprit.

A scene in Bui Doi Cho Lon

An official from Thien Ngan Studios, a partner in the film project, said they have lodged a petition to the investigative agency after the film was released, on July 5.

“The uploading is illegal under Vietnamese law and has caused losses to the company by adversely affected the prestige of the film," the official said.

While Chanh Phuong Studios was the film’s maker, Thien Ngan Studios acted as investors, pumping around VND16 billion (USD760,600) into the project.

“When the film was banned from being presented to the public in any form for being too violent, we incurred serious losses and faced a lot of difficulties. However, we’ve strictly complied with the Cinema Department’s decision,” the official noted.

According to the official, this may be a plot that was directly targeted at Thien Ngan Studios, as the draft that was uploaded onto Youtube and other social networks with the name Galaxy, an English name of the studio.

“This is an obvious slander as the draft was still under review. We’ll cooperate with relevant agencies to force the culprit to be held accountable,” the official added.

After the incident, Johnny Tri Nguyen, who played the main character in the film said, “The version which was uploaded to the internet was the third draft which has yet to be completed and still contained several shortcomings. Anyways, it provides the main content of the film and those who have watched it may not bother seeing the official version, causing damages to us.”

He said that the version was supposed to be unreleased, and just few important people from the producer had it.

He, however, refused to name some suspected people and believed that it would be easy for the police to find them.

The film’s director, Charlie Nguyen, said, “I was shocked and hurt by the incident. I feel as if someone tried to kill my “child”. I don’t want anyone to see this version; it is incomplete and has not made it past any censors."

The film was banned from release but the film maker holds out hope that authorities may change their minds. The incident has put a damper on this hope.