| Mười: The Legend of a Portrait | |||||||||||||
| Director: | Kim Tae-kyeong | ||||||||||||
| Starring: | Jo An Cha Ye-ryun Anh Thư | ||||||||||||
| Music: | Ryu Hyeong-wook | ||||||||||||
| Cinematography: | Park Jae-hong | ||||||||||||
| Editing: | Ko Im-pyo | ||||||||||||
| Distributor: | Cinema Service CJ Entertainment (South Korea) Phuoc Sang Films (Vietnam) | ||||||||||||
| Runtime: | 93 minutes | ||||||||||||
| Country: | South Korea Vietnam | ||||||||||||
| Language: | Korean Vietnamese | ||||||||||||
| Gross: | [1] | ||||||||||||
| Native Name: |
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Mười: The Legend of a Portrait is a 2007 horror film starring Jo An, Cha Ye-ryun and Anh Thu. It became the first horror film in Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon[2] as well as the first rated film in Vietnam.
Yun-hee, a South Korean writer, is under pressure by her editor to produce something of interest for her next book. She hasn’t had a book published in three years and is all too cognizant of this fact. Things look up when her old friend Seo-yeon calls from Vietnam. Seo-Yeon informs Yun-hee about a local Vietnamese folklore centered around a girl named “Mười” and her haunted portrait. It just so happens that in Yun-hee’s prior novel, she wrote a semi-autobiographical tale concerning her friends titled “Secrets & Lies”. In the book Seo-Yeon was portrayed in the most horrible manner, but Yun-hee is sure that Seo-Yeon hasn’t read the book as she has been living in Vietnam for years. Yun-hee eagerly flies to Vietnam to learn more about Muoi.
Muoi is considered the first horror film production to be made in Vietnam.[3] Despite high public expectation, the picture also received bad reactions.
Upon examination, it received a disapproval from Vietnamese Bureau of Cinema for "unsuitable contents,"[4] which led to a delay in Vietnamese release. Because of this, it became the second horror film to be released in Vietnam, while another in the genre, Ngoi nha ma am/Suoi oan hon (Haunted House/Ghosted Stream), came out in August.
Finally, Muoi was released on December 24, 2007 with the first rating in Vietnamese film history: an under-16 ban for disturbing violence and horror image. Though stuck with this restriction, Muoi also had to suffer from scene cuts requested by the bureau. These include Muoi's right leg breakage, a monk's body falling, and Eun-jung's death.[4]
At 2008's 7th Golden Kite Awards (the local equivalent of the Oscars), Phuoc Sang Films chose to send Muoi to the examining judge; afterwards, controversy arose because it was not considered a "real Vietnamese film"[5] (most of the film was shot by Koreans). However, the film still received accolades for Best Cinematography and Best Sounds.[6]