Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass

This is a movie portraying love and affection about a hometown, a family and teenage hood of each. Tuong is an innocent and lovely boy while his brother Thieu is cruelly selfish and stubborn. Aside from brotherhood filled with love, hate, envy, regret and atonement,...this is also about friendship, childhood memory of children living in poverty in Middle Region of Vietnam during 80s. There are fights; interesting kids' games; dreams filled with the images of prince and princess, and their first crush...

The story is demonstrated from a diary of Thieu evolving his daily life and thoughts. Thieu is a 7th grader who lives in a poor countryside with his younger brother named Tuong. Tuong is a lovely, generous and nice boy who loves his brother a lot; he especially loves playing with animals including bugs even. He is an introvert and loves reading many books and folk tales, especially the story of Coc Tia (Purple Toad), therefore he pets a toad under his bed and names it "Cu Cau". On the other hand, Thieu is a mischievous, extroverted boy who has been unintentionally letting Thieu take all the blame for his tricks. Although being selfish on the outside, deep down Thieu still loves his brother. The two brothers often hang around playing many traditional games for kids and make many memories out of it. The story also broadens the relationship between the two brothers and people in their village, including their classmates and families. Their father is described as a gentle man who is appreciated by many, yet he has a short temper and often beat the two brothers for some reasons, while their mother is a nice women, but she still scolds them for their mistakes regardless.

Uncle Dan is the younger brother of Thieu's father who is handicapped yet still positive and often spare his time to tell some spooky stories for two brothers. His only sorrow must be his ill fated love caused by losing an arm from his side. Uncle Dan loves Vinh, a girl who is the daughter of Thieu's scary teacher and also lives in the same village. One of Thieu's classmates is Son, who is 3 years older but still in the same class with Thieu due to his bad grades. Son is a muscular boy who is extremely naughty with much misbehavior. Later, Thieu comes to realize his crush for his classmate Man. Man is cute and innocent, but she doesn't study well enough due to needing to take care of her sick father, who is locked inside a shack by her mother. Only Thieu and Tuong know this secret as both have to fight against Son to protect Man from evil plans.

The shack Man's father is locked inside catches fire; her mother is arrested for capturing her husband who is assumed to have died during the fire as bones are discovered in the ash. Man is shocked and completely devastated; Thieu's family decide to help her by telling her that she can live with them. Man is aware of the fact that her father is still alive and her mother will be released soon. However, the friendship between Man and Tuong makes Thieu jealous gradually. He doesn't care about the death of Tuong's toad, which forever haunts Thieu to see Tuong's mourning over the toad without knowing that his brother was also a part of that incident. The flood arrives and the village is drowned, once it withdraws, the village is left with poverty and lack of crop. Thieu, Tuong and Man discover that Uncle Dan and Vinh have already planned for an escape from their family. At the same time, Thieu's selfishness is getting bigger, which makes him hit Tuong with a big stick of wood, leaving Tuong unable to move or sit. Moreover, Thieu feels more regretful as Tuong tells him that he is the one whom Man would like to hang out with.

• Thịnh Vinh as Thiều
• Trọng Khang as Tường
• Thanh Mỹ as Mận
• Mai Thế Hiệp as Mr. Nhãn
• Trương Tú Liên as Thiều's mother
• Lê Vinh as Thiều's father
• Anh Tú as Đàn
• Khánh Hiền as Vinh
• Mai Trần as Tám Tàng
• Mỹ Anh as Nhi

Director Viet Linh was ordered by Phuong Nam Films to write the script of the movie which was finished in 2013. The script was demonstrated from the same name novel of writer Nguyen Nhat Anh by Viet Linh, Victor Vu and Doan Nhat Nam altogether. The movie was mostly filmed at Phu Yen, some at Van Ninh Commune, Khanh Hoa Province and Ho Chi Minh City. The original title was "Hoa Vang Tren Co Xanh" (Yellow Flowers on Green Grass), this is the first movie which was not written by Victor Vu himself. The budget of the movie was nearly 20 billion Vietnamdong. This is the first movie which is produced as a cooperation between national and private company.

• List of submissions to the 89th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Vietnamese submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

• Yellow Flowers on the Green Grass on IMDb
• Tôi thấy hoa vàng trên cỏ xanh on Facebook
• YELLOW FLOWERS ON THE GREEN GRASS trên Fortissimo Films