Vietnam’s Mockingbird Launches Horror Duo & Comedy Drama ‘The Happiest Cell’ At Busan’s ACFM

EXCLUSIVE: Mockingbird Pictures is launching three new titles at Busan’s Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM), heading a slate of horror, supernatural mystery, comedy and family drama, as the range of genre films emerging from Vietnam and Southeast Asia continues to expand.

Horror, the bedrock of Southeast Asian genre cinema, features prominently on the slate, through two new titles – Indonesia’s The Doll Ghawiah and Vietnam’s The River Demon (Út Lan 2). However, another new title, Bluebells Studios’ The Happiest Cell, is a prison-set comedy drama revealing that Vietnamese studios are moving beyond horror to experiment with different genres.

Directed by Guntur Soeharjanto, The Doll Ghawiah is the latest chapter in Hitmaker Studios’ long-running The Doll universe, a franchise that has drawn around 5 million admissions in Indonesia. Set in 1988, this new installment follows a family who leaves Jakarta for Bandung in search of a fresh start, only to be terrorized by the restless spirit of a young girl and her doll, Ghawiah.

The River Demon, directed by Tran Trong Dan, pushes Mockingbird’s slate into darker territory with an intense supernatural horror story rooted in Vietnamese folk beliefs. Following the success of The Guardian Demon, the film expands the filmmaker’s exploration of curses, rural legends and buried secrets through the story of a haunted riverside village, where the emergence of a two-headed serpent marks the beginning of a series of terrifying events.

Directed by Nguyen Nhat Trung, The Happiest Cell features a star-studded cast headed by Tuan Tran (Leaving Mom), Ma Ran Do (Hijacked) and Luong The Thanh (Betting With Ghost). Scheduled for release in Vietnam on November 20, the film is described as a “story that finds humor, friendship and humanity inside one of society’s harshest environments”.

Meanwhile, some of Mockingbird’s older titles are finding success at the box office and through international sales. Zero Meets Hero (Nghỉ Hè Sợ Nghỉ Hưu), directed by Huynh Lap, recently closed its domestic run with nearly $8M (VND207.7BN), making it the third-highest-grossing Vietnamese film of 2026. Blending comedy, family drama and supernatural elements, the film revolves around the relationship between a Gen Z grandson and his war-veteran grandfather.

Luck For Sale (Lên Hương), directed by Khuong Ngoc, is set for U.S. theatrical release on October 9 across AMC, Regal and Cinemark theaters, accompanied by special screenings and a promotional tour with the film’s director and cast. The film is built around themes of family, mortality and generational wounds.

“We are not looking for one single formula for Southeast Asian cinema,” said Phong Duong, Business Director of Mockingbird Pictures. “What excites us is the range – established franchises, box office performers, culturally rooted genre films, emotionally driven dramas and major star-led productions. Southeast Asia is producing increasingly diverse commercial cinema, and our role is to help each film find the international audience and market where it can connect most strongly.”

In addition to international sales, Mockingbird Pictures is also a distributor of local and international films in Vietnam, handling around 60 theatrical releases and more than 100 post-theatrical titles annually.