Cutting Corners for a Labor of Love in Vietnam

Could indie filmmaker Truc “Charlie” Nguyen make and release his feature film on a budget of $200,000?

He could, he figured, if he took some extreme cost-cutting measures. So he moved out of his bachelor pad and back into his parent’s house in Westminster. He used a digital camera and leased the rest of his equipment. He maxed out his credit cards and decided to shoot on location in Vietnam. He got the entertainment company he works for to invest in the film, and instead of shopping for a distributor, he decided to rent a local theater.

His scheme worked. His full-length romantic comedy, “Vat Doi Sao Doi,” or “Chances Are,” is playing through Dec. 31 at MainPlace Theater 6 in Santa Ana.

Written and directed by Nguyen, the movie stars Van Son as Huy, a Vietnamese American who returns to Ho Chi Minh City to marry his debonair fiancee, Lan (Hong Dao), only to run into some major snags just before the wedding. He loses his wallet along with his pants, then he takes the wrong train, where he meets the lovely Phuong (“Tawny” Thanh Truc Nguyen). The two get stranded in a rural village, where Huy does a lot of soul-searching and chances are ... the wedding is off.

Set in the former Saigon and the coastal town of Phan Thiet, the two-hour feature was filmed in Vietnamese and has English subtitles.

Nguyen spent three months with his volunteer cast in Vietnam, waiting to get film permits. Once approved, the shoot took only three weeks because the crew was willing to work 16- to 20-hour days.

“We got no sleep trying to finish the movie,” said the lithe lead actress, “Tawny” Nguyen, 30. She’s the film’s co-producer and Nguyen’s younger sister.

Nguyen’s production company, Cinema Pictures, is a home-grown enterprise operating out of a spare room in the house where he lives with his sister and parents.

His sister and mother help handle the business side of Cinema Pictures, from finances to marketing and promotions. His younger brother, Tri, who works as a Hollywood stuntman, is the film’s director of photography.

Nguyen relies on his day job directing Vietnamese music videos and comedy sitcoms to pay the bills.

Since he started Cinema Pictures in 1992, Nguyen has long dreamed of writing and directing his own film in an exotic setting.

“I was getting so tired of churning out new stage sets and videos in one or two days. There’s no time to really prepare or develop anything elaborate,” said Nguyen, 32. His Cinema Pictures works with Van Son Entertainment to release Vietnamese music videos and movies in the United States, Asia and Europe. Son, “Chances Are’s” star, owns Van Son Entertainment.

“So the projects I do seem to end up smaller or lesser than the original vision,” Nguyen said. “This film was a way to break away from the music videos.”

Sitting in his home studio, Nguyen is surrounded by equipment. This is where “Chances Are” was edited.

After making the first cut, Nguyen sent the video to Foto Kem, a lab in Burbank well-regarded by indie filmmakers for converting tapes into a 35-millimeter format.

“Chances Are” is Nguyen’s second movie. His first was a historical epic about the legend of Hung Vuong 18th, an emperor of feudal Vietnam, circa 268 BC. It premiered in 1994 at the now-closed Thu Do Cinema Theatre in Garden Grove and screened again at the Stanton Theatre in 1996.

For that project, Nguyen had a $280,000 budget and managed to re-create battles with costumed warriors on horseback.

He and his volunteer crew of 200 built a massive set with a palace, and a lush, tropical landscape with bamboo, banana trees and sugar canes that they trucked into Hemet.

Most of the filming was done at dusk to conceal buildings, utility lines and other details that would seem out of place in ancient Vietnam.

He took a loss at the box office, but the project was a labor of love.

Nguyen and his father left Vietnam by boat and arrived in the United States in 1981 when he was 10. His mother and siblings arrived two years later.

Nguyen majored in business at Cal State Long Beach, but film has always been his passion.

He gripped his first camera, a Super-8 video cam, when he was 15. He would mount it on a stick and make short, karate flicks with his younger brother.

“Most screenwriters learn the storytelling first, before they get into the shooting and editing,” Nguyen said. “I learned it the other way around.”

Nguyen’s immediate goal is simply to keep learning about the art of making movies.

“Right now, I’m not thinking about how much money I can make from this movie, or about the risks in doing it, or whether to take it to Cannes or Sundance.

“These smaller films are steppingstones, a way to gain experience and develop my craft,” he said.

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“Chances Are” is playing at MainPlace Theatre 6 through Dec. 31. Daily shows: 11:30 a.m., and 2, 4:30, 7 and 9:15 p.m. (There is no 11:30 a.m. show today.) $6-10. (714) 517-9851 for English or (714) 624-8397 for Vietnamese.