Q: How could AI change the way Vietnamese screenwriters develop, visualise and bring their stories to the screen?
Mr Nguyen Trong Khoa: AI could make the writing process more efficient and effective. A Vietnamese screenwriter can ask an AI for research assistance on a historical period, brainstorm moral dilemmas for a character, compare structures, or generate “what if” variations without compromising on ownership of the story. Used well, AI behaves like a powerful researcher, creative assistant or writing team in the room. It may offer alternative angles, patterns and references, while the writer decides which is the most emotionally true and tone consistent.
AI applications such as ChatGPT can be found helpful for formatting, structure, conflict and action description, and grammar and spelling fixes, but relatively weak at authentic local experience. The human writer must remain the source of cultural truth.
Visually, AI can be used to turn a paragraph into mood boards, storyboards, animatics, shot lists or even rough video tests. Still, newer video systems advertise greater control over camera angle, consistent characters, locations and audio, making pre-visualisation more cost-effective for small teams.
The biggest danger of using AI widely in the filmmaking pipeline is generic storytelling and style as AI generally works toward the median. However, the clear opportunity is faster iteration, variations, and experimentation before costly production begins.
Q: Which genres, formats or types of Vietnamese stories could benefit most from AI-assisted filmmaking?
Mr Nguyen Trong Khoa: Vietnamese stories that require worlds larger than the budget permits or too difficult or impractical to recreate would benefit most. This includes folk fantasies, historical epics, war films, science fiction, and animation. AI could help Vietnamese filmmakers test creatures, costumes, locations, battle scenes, ghosts, dream sequences and impossible camera moves before they spend big budget on sets, special effects (SFX) makeup, costuming or VFX.
This is particularly important because Vietnam's recent box office successes have come from culturally resonant domestic films. Vietnamese films represented about 62 per cent of 2025 box office revenue, with war films and historical dramas such as Mua do (Red Rain) and Tu chien tren khong (Hijacked) performing strongly, while horror remained a scalable local genre. TVCs, brand stories, short films, music videos, proof-of-concept trailers and streaming-first series would benefit because they don’t require the presence of recognisable stars and AI lowers the cost of pitching, visual development, production, and even post-production.
While the primary objective should be cultural specificity, AI can be extremely useful when it helps Vietnamese filmmakers visualise Vietnamese memory, landscapes, folklore, migration, class, family and youth culture. It should not be used to mimic or be identical renderings of internationally imported content.
