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% You have many superheroes. Why did you superhero story. I guess more would be
choose a pre-teen superhero movie as the through human values, which are also inher-
first? Is it to expand the audience base by in- ently Vietnamese values. We have learned them
cluding kids? and we teach them to our kids - the value of
Our characters are pre-teen, but it’s not a friendship, family, compassion, kindness, etc.
kids’ movie. People usually get that impres- Cultural nuances, references, contexts, and
sion when they hear the age of the charac- quirks aid relevance and relatability and are im-
ters. It’s your typical superhero movie as the portant, but at the same time they should
slick visuals suggest and is definitely not writ- never overshadow the story. Even if I don’t un-
ten as a kids’ movie. It’s a clean movie, and if derstand a particular cultural quirk or context,
Vietnam had a PG rating, we would have qual- I still shouldn’t lose sight of the story. Coco is a
ified for it. Age restriction is for the censor to good example of such amazing writing. It was
decide when they evaluate the content. I am based on a Mexican cultural belief, but under-
a parent myself, and we have to be responsi- standing and loving the story didn’t need prior
ble about what we can allow our kids to see. familiarity. Characters are the ones we identify
Our choice for Sep as the first was based with or relate to the most. Their personalities
on the storytelling possibilities it presented. are always the most important thing we take
That age is an interesting time and offered into account while writing. It leads the way.
amazing insights that could be used to cre-
ate a good and unique story that everyone % YONG is an industry grooming initiative of
would enjoy. We believe in populist cinema. yours. While I understand you can’t discuss
Movies that cut through demographics are the details, can you tell us what prompted
what we prefer. Also, Sep was the first super- the need for it?
hero character we had created. At the time, If we want to thrive in an industry, the in-
we had the luxury of creating only one, and dustry has to thrive too. A cycle of give and
we created Sep. So, call it a first love that fails take is the only way that’s going to happen. We
to fade away. We’ll be introducing a few more are not going out of our way to do something
characters in Sep who won’t be pre-teen or - we just bore it in mind from the start and cre- MR. SAMEER PITALWALLA,
Business Director India/SEA
very young. ated an initiative that serves our purpose and Epic Games
does good for the industry too. The “going-
% You emphasize story and quality quite a out-of-the-way” type of planning is usually not
lot. While we see the quality part and what it sustainable. “We’re glad that Planet Tota
takes to ensure that, what steps were taken YONG is a play on “Young” and that kind has chosen to use Unreal
to get a good script? of makes it self-explanatory. It’s focused on
First and foremost was tons of research. The the next-gen in Vietnamese film-making. Viet- Engine for the development of
age of our protagonists required us to meet nam has so many bright and talented people, Sep. Our goal with Unreal
hundreds of kids to understand them. Those in- and in whatever little way we can, we’ll do our Engine is to give creators like
sights were extremely important, as much of best to see some of them get the opportunity Planet Tota the next-
the writing flowed from there. Their age influ- they deserve. generation tools and
enced everything, including how fights were collaborative technologies
written. Insight phishing was a very fascinating % Another project in the superhero genre
experience and actually prompted us to create was announced by a studio late last year. Did they need to bring their
a 12-song music album, Friends, around certain it in any way affect your plans? creative vision to life.
topics. We also had to do a lot of technology re- On the contrary, it was encouraging to Powerful stories like Sep are
search on AI and robotics, etc., to get the sci- know that prominent industry people are tak- an excellent example of this. In
ence right. There is no region or time stamp, but ing notice of what we saw too. It was validation addition, the team’s efforts to
it was important to keep the feel of Vietnam and of our thinking. As I mentioned, “superhero” build the film industry
the perception of a present-day story. has evolved into a genre. Just like there can be
Marvel or DC movies or any other superhero many movies from the romance or drama or ecosystem in Vietnam are also
movie from elsewhere was definitely not our thriller genres, there’s a lot of room in the su- very much aligned with Epic
guiding light for storylines. Those amazing ef- perhero space too. See it from a movie-goer’s Games’ own philosophy of
forts have opened up a world of cinematic pos- perspective - they will be thrilled at that empowering and supporting
sibilities. They are good for understanding “How thought as there’s more to look forward to. content creators. We’re
to make” rather than “What to tell”. For us, to be looking forward to supporting
able to strike a chord with the audience in Viet- % Lastly, which superhero movies are your
nam and hopefully be able take this Vietnamese favorites? Planet Tota in pushing the
story to other countries too, it was important to I’m a huge fan of Nolan’s Batman series. boundaries of Vietnamese
write a human story before a superhuman one. The Dark Knight is my favorite. I find Captain cinema and inspiring new
America: Civil War to be one of the best super- projects that capitalize on
% How do you achieve that universality in hero movies written. Good vs. good is not easy cutting-edge virtual
writing while focusing on writing a Viet- to write. I also like the first Sam Raimi’s Spider- production and 3D
namese movie? Man. It had the nuance of a comic book in its
The choice of subject naturally determines visuals, which I thought was a very cool story- technology.”
the narrative. Good always wins over evil is the telling and visual take. And, of course, the first
most inherent value of any story, especially a Iron Man. That was a great movie.

APRIL 2021 | VIETNAM ECONOMIC TIMES | 41