The director of the Hanoi International Film Festival 2012’s opening movie has been condemned for his product.
Hot Sand's crew at Hanoi International Film Festival 2012
Director of Cat Nong or Hot Sand, Le Hoang, was condemned after the film's script-writer complained that the director had changed the content of the movie without permission. The film was described as a movie 'disaster' of the year.
Scriptwriter Pham Thuy Nhan’s film was approved several years ago and was earmarked a VND6 billion (USD288,000) from the state. However, the project was halted because of a lack of funding.
The movie was then given to director Le Hoang, who deliberately changed the script without discussion.
General Director of Liberation Film Studio Thai Hoa was questioned whether he had made a mistake allowing a novice scriptwriter like Le Hoang to vastly change the script, but Thai Hoa said because his company had bought the script so they had every right to change it.
Hot Sand is set at a resort, where Tuyet is the chairwoman and her lover, Nam, is sales and marketing director. Tuyet enjoys eating lizards while Cat, an innocent local girl just wants to protect the species.
After the movie was screened, director Le Hoang was heavily criticised.
They said he had taken a risk in using a regular camera to shoot the movie. "Although I used regular cameras, it’s still a movie." He said.
Despite his confidence, viewers criticised the scripts and performances. For example the scene where Cat, a innocent and very naive girl, climbs onto Nam's bed to beg him not to eat the salamanders.
The movie was also criticised for showing too many scenes where the lizards were killed. The scenes where the resort owner crushes a salamander under her high heels or where Tuyet butchers several lizards in a kitchen were particularly condemned.
"The movie has so much horrible scenes. Especially when the salamanders were being killed in the kitchen, or scenes when hundreds of salamanders were chopped and burned. If the movie was meant to scare their viewers then it did a good job." People's Artist The Anh said.
A scene from Hot Sand