The ‘Inferno’ Victor Vu Started in Vietnam: An Exposé on ‘Giao lo dinh menh’

It’s no secret that Hollywood writers, directors, actors and more “borrow” ideas and concepts from each other on a daily basis, being inspired by films of the past in hopes of making their latest film even better. Plagiarism isn’t something we hear about every day in Hollywood. We occasionally hear about producers/directors/screenwriters making films based off of unproduced screenplays or books that they may or may not have read. But it is extremely rare that deliberate plagiarism arises in an industry that is prone for lawsuits. Why am I writing this you ask? Currently, a massive scam has been uncovered in Vietnam regarding Victor Vu’s latest film Giao lo dinh menh , also known in English as Inferno, and whether or not the film is an exact copy of Wolfgang Petersen’s 1991 film, Shattered.

 

For those of you who don’t know who Victur Vu is, here is a bit of background information: Victor Vu is a Vietnamese American who was born in North Hollywood after his parents fled Vietnam before the fall of Saigon. He attended and graduated from the School of Cinema and Television at Loyola Marymount University in 1998 and began making feature length films in Orange County, California.

 

Now that you know who Vu is and where he comes from, I will dive into what made Inferno such a controversial film.

 

After opening to great acclaim, Vu, the film’s writer, co-producer, director, and editor, promoted himself as a Hitchcockian filmmaker and stated that writing the script was his “biggest challenge” because he “had to create all sorts of plot scenarios and details to keep the audience in suspense from scene to scene, while keeping the ending a secret up until the last minute of the film.” Inferno was promoted as “A new breath of fresh air in Vietnam cinema” and “The film that changes the face of Vietnamese Cinema;” ¹ but all those titles quickly faded in October, one month later, when a Vietnamese expatriate saw the film and stated to the Vietnamese press that this film was an exact copy of an American film called Shattered. After the allegations were made, Vu, along with producer Irene Trinh, called for press conferences so that they could explain the Hitchcockian technique, the “Hollywood formula,” and state the fact that they had apparently never seen Shattered and that it was simply a “coincidence.”²

 

Why does this idea of a “coincidence” not make any sense at all? In many Asian countries, saving face is extremely important, it is the idea of maintaining one’s honor and self respect. When someone plays you for a fool or you do something to disrespect yourself, you also disrespect your peers and family. This is exactly what Victor Vu has done; he has played the ignorant population of Vietnam for fools in an attempt to achieve the Hollywood dream of fame and fortune. Vu graduated from school in 1998, which means that he was old enough to see the film Shattered, which would have, by then, been on VHS when he entered college. The pertinent piece of information is that Vietnam had a Trade Embargo with the US until 1994, three years after the film was released, which means no one in Vietnam could had seen Shattered. While it never did receive a theatrical release, chances are this mediocre movie probably didn’t get a VHS release either. This is extremely important because it means that Shattered’s plot was never discovered and could be reused in an ignorant environment. Apparently, Victor Vu used all the elements of Shattered and “remade” it in Vietnam with the help of head producer Irene Trinh (a Canadian Vietnamese) and exploited the country’s ignorance. Coincidence? I think not.

 

Now that you have a basic understanding of the scam, I’d like to dig a bit further and offer a few examples to help prove that this is no coincidence like Vu states. When attempting to shed light on intentional plagiarism it makes sense to start from the basics, which means, in the case of film, start with the synopsis, the official plot details and structure of which a film is based. Below you will find the two synopses for the respective films. I have bolded and color coordinated the similarities between the two to show you how identical the plots really are.

 

Shattered Synopsis:

Writer/director Wolfgang Petersen (Air Force One, In the Line of Fire) cranks up the suspense in this riveting thriller that will “keep you guessing [up until its] shockingly unexpected ending” (The Washington Post)! A stellar cast including Tom Berenger, Bob Hoskins, Greta Scacchi, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer and Corbin Bernsen breathe life into this gripping film noir about the survivor of a car accident who begins to suspect his near-death was no accident. Dan Merrick struggles to reconstruct his life after a disfiguring accident leaves him without much of a memory and the care of a wife and friends who seem to be repainting his past! And as Merrick begins to reconstruct his life, strange flashes of memory begin to surface, each drawing him further into a maze of corruption that could prove more deadly than any accident!

 

 

Inferno (Giao lo dinh menh) Synopsis:

SAIGON, DISTRICT 7. Heavy rain falls from the dark sky. A car speeds across an intersection and loses control, smashing into a delivery truck. The car flips through the air and explodes in flames. The man in the car is severely burned – his face completely disfigured. To make matters worse, he suffers from amnesia and cannot remember anything before the accident.

 

The man wakes up several weeks later in the hospital and learns that he is MANH, a wealthy real estate tycoon with connections to politicians as well as the underground world. Later, he knows he has a beautiful wife named Trang and a man who is assumed to be his best friend named Bao. He also knows that he has business relationship with a son of a powerful mafia family named Hung. And …. there is a mysterious young girl who always follows him with strange messages.

Manh finds that he is in a mysterious journey through the connections with various characters. As the stories told by them, the secrets of his life are gradually revealed. PAST & PRESENT connects…

In the effort to get his memories and piercing his broken life back together, the ugly truths behind his true face and the secrets from the accident come to light…

After reading both synopses, it is clear that there are striking similarities. While one goes a bit more in depth and the other leaves out other comparable details, one thing is for sure, these two movies have almost exactly the same premise. The characters may have different names, the occupations differ as well, but the core plot is the same: a wealthy man was disfigured in a car accident and, as a result, now suffers from amnesia which leads to the lead actor investigating his own life, using his friends and his hazy memory to reconstruct what kind of man he was and what he may have been involved in.

If a synopsis comparison isn’t enough to convince you, a few Vietnamese whistleblowers from the online Vietnamese forums who have asked to remain anonymous, have put together a clip which gives us a shot for shot comparison of the two films. Only trailer clips were available for Inferno, since it was in theaters as of late November, but it was enough to compile a solid video that truly shows you the similarities between the two films, including storyline, lighting, and shot design.

 

Shot for shot comparison:

 

One final example is a written shot for shot comparison chart that has been compiled and translated by Vietnamese university students, expats, and those for a better Vietnam. If you have seen both films then this chart is a great example of how much of Shattered was copied, both its story and shot style.

 

Click HERE to view the document.

 

Hopefully by now you have a better idea of what is actually going on and the severity of the issue. Not only has Victor Vu essentially stolen a movie and remade it to dupe the Vietnamese audience, but he didn’t even have the decency to modify the film enough to truly make it his own. Had he called this film a remake he never would have ran into any trouble; audience goers would not have only been proud to see this film, but they would have been excited to see a Vietnamese film making huge quality improvements in hopes of standing a chance at the box office against western competitors. There are many modern examples of Asian countries remaking American titles, like Yimou Zhang’s Coen Bros. Blood Simple remake, A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop, or the Chinese remake of the famous Mel Gibson movie, What Women Want, entitled I Know a Woman’s Heart. If they could do it, why couldn’t Vu?

 

The following is an excerpt from a Vietnamese article regarding the potential reaction to the scam (translated by Vietnamese expats, edited by myself for wording purposes).

”Giao lo dinh menh was hyped as ‘the film that would change the face of Vietnamese Cinema,’ as ‘The delicious feast of Vietnamese film amidst a summer of Western movies,’ but instead it has been discovered to be plagiarized work…

 

It has been extremely difficult for Vietnamese films to bring audiences to the cinema. Although movie ticket prices have been rising fast compared to the low incomes of the population, people come to watch Vietnamese films because of their love and support for their community. But shocking scams like this are taking advantage of audience members and will end up wiping out the innocent love and trust that has been given to the fledging Vietnamese film industry. Once we’ve lost the trust of the audience we’ve lost everything!

 

This scam will surely be met with the furor at home and with the overseas Vietnamese community. Up until now it has been difficult to succeed in the Vietnamese film market and it has been made more difficult now because of this scam. From now on, Vietnamese audiences will be skeptical and on their guard [when it comes to] things done by overseas Vietnamese.”³

It seems that Victor Vu has eliminated the bond of trust that once existed between foreign born Vietnamese and their domestic brethren. To add to this misfortune, currently there are no real effective laws or methods in place to detect plagiarism in Vietnam, especially plagiarism to this extent, which may cause even more uproar from the Vietnamese citizens. Vice-Chairman of the Vietnam Cinema Department, Mr. Le Ngoc Minh, who is also the Chairman of the Censor Bureau, had this to say after being notified about the scam:

“The case of Giao lo dinh menh (Inferno) is a shame! I have witnessed the angry uproar by the public [during] my working trip to Ho Chi Minh City. Many have questioned me as Chairman of the Censor Bureau, asking me why did I let [Inferno] slip. But at that time, I had never seen Shattered which was the original film copied by Victor Vu.”

 

“… We do not have the necessary means to detect such plagiarism of foreign movies from decades ago which have never been imported and never been available in Vietnam. The Censor Bureau doesn’t have the means to detect such plagiarism in order to prevent it from being distributed in Vietnam”

 

He goes on to say that “the Vietnam Cinema Department has sent a letter of warning to the production company and director of Inferno (Giao lo dinh menh). Accordingly, the production company and Victor Vu must take full responsibility for their plagiarism if the copyright owners of Shattered do find out.”⁴

It’s clear that the government is currently unable to do anything about the scam except encourage people not to see the movie, continually put pressure on Mr. Vu, and to try and educate as many people as possible about the situation and what will happen to those who try to dupe the Vietnamese community in the future.

 

As for Victor Vu’s reaction, here is what he had to say when he made an appearance at a press conference to discuss the matter at hand:

Question: When the allegations first surfaced you said to the press: “I’ve never heard anyone talking about any similarities but I will be very pleasantly surprised if there were any real similarities.” What do you say now?

 

Victor Vu: Yes the two movies are similar, but just because my film came out later [than Shattered] I’m accused of plagiarism… I have already said many times that Inferno has been done according to the style of Master Alfred Hitchcock and [that] I made the movie using his techniques, so what’s wrong with that. The ‘pleasant surprise’ here, is that I’ve asked myself, ‘’why have I never seen Shattered?’

… Even though I lived in America, I can’t see every single movie, but this movie has been done using Hitchcock’s technique, and it was successful, and I also used Hitchcock’s technique. I like Hitchcock and yet have never seen this movie before, that’s the real surprise.

 

Statement to Victor Vu: But the audience still doesn’t believe your explanation.

 

Victor Vu: This is a case of being innocent but the circumstances make it look bad. I wrote the script when I was a student and I was sure nobody else could come up with such a good story, that’s why I kept it to myself for all these years. When I made the movie I did it according to the Hollywood formula and the techniques of Hitchcock, so at least 50% [of the movie] would be identical…

…From the standpoint of professional people, it’s not difficult at all to explain the similarities, because, as I’ve said, if movies use the same technique they have to be similar. But to the (Vietnamese) society, I and my crew (people who have never seen Shattered before) think it’s difficult to explain the coincidence, it’s like some…bizarre incident. ⁵

 

After watching Shattered it is clear that it has a Hitchcockian feel to it, and whether or on not the attempt was good is irrelevant. What matters is that the specific style was used, and it is the style Victur Vu looked to emulate as well. What is striking about Vu’s second comment is that he believes using this style means that 50% of the film has to be similar which is completely false. Hitchcock had a very specific way to make his movies and any film that tries to replicate his style will always contain certain thematic elements because, let’s face it, his style is what makes certain thrillers better. It allows for maximum suspense and greater overall enjoyment. Filmmakers understand this, but no good filmmaker follows an exact “Hollywood formula” because they know that not only does it limit your creativity, but it doesn’t always work. Movies like Buried, Caché, Phone Booth, Shutter Island, and The Talented Mr. Ripley all use the Hitchcockian style but are dramatically different in story and context. The only similarities are the feelings the films evoke; those thrilling and eerie sensations which make thrillers enjoyable to watch. It is obvious Victor Vu is feeding lies to the public, the majority of which is lacking basic filmmaking knowledge and don’t understand the styles of Albert Hitchcock.

 

Lastly, if you reread the bolded text again, Vu said that he wrote the script in college (although a close source has told me differently) and decided to keep it to himself for roughly 18 years. If he knew the script was good why would he hold it back? After winning a couple of film awards wouldn’t it make sense that he would have been approached by other filmmakers interested in working with him or, as any eager filmmaker would do, wouldn’t he approach producers through the connections he had made in school if his story was that good? Why wait so long if the script was done? Because Shattered may have still been in the minds of Americans even if it is an easily forgettable film. Since the Vietnamese people never had exposure to it, they would be his ideal target, and once he established credibility in the United States, he could go to Vietnam, attempt to become established, and then get funding to make a movie that most Americans would never see. It’s a brilliant plan when you think about it, but it’s also so deceptive and cruel as well. Irene Trinh, his co-producer, was apparently involved in the scheme from the start as well, but if you ask me, the blame should fall onto Victor Vu as he initiated this crime when his pen hit the paper and translated Shattered to Giao lo dinh menh.

 

As of now, Victor Vu still insists that “all the similarities to Shattered are just coincidental” and that even if Inferno was inspired by Shattered, Vu and others won’t admit it, stating that it is actually “unnecessary” to do so⁶. Why they believe admitting another film inspired this one is beyond me. That is quite possibly one of the worst responses you could give and any PR representative would be stunned if their client said something along those lines.

 

As this case continues to unravel, you can count on one thing: Victor Vu’s scam will not go unnoticed here in the west. I will be curious to see how well Victor Vu’s film fares when it hits the Vietnamese DVD shelves, and if consumers boycott it, that will be the ultimate test to determine if the Vietnamese population cares enough about this incident.  I personally would like Mr. Vu to reach out to me and offer his comments about this scam.  I believe in the idea of innocent until proven guilty and so I can’t declare him guilty at this point in time.  I can only give my opinion based on the facts that have been researched and presented to me which is why I invite him to send me a screener of the film so that I can finally determine the validity of all the Vietnamese news articles and the comments from concerned citizens.

 

Hopefully this article will reach the right people at Capella International, Davis Entertainment, and Palace Pictures, the production companies behind Shattered, since they are the ones losing money from a copy cat film that didn’t receive permission or licenses. As more credible information comes to fruition, you can bet that Movie Buzzers will shed light on the matter so that our readers are accurately informed about this scam in progress.

 

I would like to personally thank those who have brought this fraud case to my attention, emailed me translations, news articles, video clips, and other necessary materials so that I could write this piece and inform the Western world. Thank you, Vietnamese and Expat Friends.

 

I hope everyone is well and that you have a happy and prosperous 2011. This is Alex from Moviebuzzers.com signing out.

 

 

Article References
1. Saigon Movies Media

 

2. KST

 

3. 60s.com-Theo TTVH

 

4. Van Hoa Online

 

5. VCTV

 

6. Thanh Nien News

 

Shattered synopsis via Amazon.com

 

Inferno synopsis via Twitch.net

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