'Muoi: The Curse Returns'

Source: Skyline Media

‘Muoi: The Curse Returns’

Vietnamese sales agent Skyline Media announced a string of sales for local horror film Muoi: The Curse Returns ahead of its participation in Busan’s Asian Contents & Film Market.

The film is about a young art dealer who discovers the cursed portrait of Muoi while visiting a long-lost friend at an old mansion. It is billed as a sequel to 2007’s Muoi: Legend Of The Portrait, which was considered the first Korean-Vietnamese co-production. According to a 1940s local legend, Muoi fell in love with a painter, but his jealous fiancée brutally tortured her until she killed herself and left a curse on her portrait.

Distributed by CJ CGV, the new film opened in second place with over 100,000 admissions from its opening weekend (September 30 - October 1) in Vietnam, behind record-breaking Korean military comedy 6/45, which was in its second week of release. 

The film has been snapped up by MovieCloud for Taiwan (opening this Friday, October 7); NCE Group for Australia later this month; Good Fellas for Korea; and Mundo Films for six countries in Latin America including Mexico in November. Malaysia-based Rapture Lions will roll out in six Southeast Asia countries including Cambodia, Singapore and Thailand, in December.

Korean executive producer Kim Tae-hyung and producer Kim Beom-sik from the original film return to executive produce and co-produce the new film respectively. “The original film was shot in Vietnam but mainly in Korean-language. A Vietnamese remake was suggested but I chose to make a sequel to dig deeper into the subject matter of love from the female perspectives,” says first-time director Hang Trinh of her new film.

She is also the CEO of Skyline Media and production company Silver Moonlight Entertainment, the main investor of the new film. The cast is headed by pop singer Chi Pu and model Rima Thanh Vy, while Anh Thu returns from the original film to play Muoi. 

Muoi: Legend Of The Portrait was also the first Vietnamese horror since the 1970s and the first local film to receive a rating (for audiences 16 years old and above).