Shadows of the Past: The People and Pulse Behind The Ancestral
When The Ancestral (2022), also known as Bóng Đè, stepped on the world’s stage as the first horror movie from Vietnam, it was not just another supernatural movie. It was also a heartfelt study of family, trauma, and generational legacy. It was directed by Le Van Kiet, who also directed the action movie Furie, and transitioned from physical action to psychological horror with The Ancestral. The film created an atmosphere of fear and dread that extended well beyond the borders of Vietnam. In India, the ancestral tied the action exactly to the emotions. The Ancestral found an unexpected emotional connection.
Yet, The Ancestral also worked on the real-life issues of its ghost creators and cast who had to integrate their untold personal stories into the film’s narrative. It was not just a horror movie. It was a reminder that the past is not as easily forgotten as we wish, be it a Vietnamese village, or an Indian joint family.
A Father’s Fear and a Filmmaker’s Faith
The Ancestral focuses on Thanh, played by Quang Tuấn, a widowed father who, after his wife’s death, moves with his two young daughters to their ancestral home. What starts as an attempt to heal with the home and each other, however, soon transforms into horror as the girls begin to have chilling visions — shadows that ultimately bear the grief the girls and their father cannot express and are transformed.
Quang Tuấn’s portrayal of Thanh depends on vulnerability and exhaustion. It’s not the traditional horror where characters scream and run, and hide; it is quieter and deeply human. In interviews, the actor explained that his own life during that period helped him comprehend the character’s loss. Tuấn had recently gone through a difficult time personally himself, balancing both fame and family. “When I looked at Thanh, I saw a man fighting ghosts — not just real ones, but emotional ones,” he said during a talk show in Vietnam.
This emotional realism is what gave the core to The Ancestral. Director Le Van Kiet did not want the driving horror to be jump scares; he wanted the characters’ silence and their suppressed pain to become the horror. “I was interested in how trauma passes down — not as memories, but as something that haunts,” Kiet explained.
This concept is especially true for Indian audiences. Just as Indian cinema has explored family karma, generational pain, and the weight of expectations (Raazi, Tumbbad, Talvar), The Ancestral uses its haunted house as a metaphor for inherited wounds.
The Haunting Beauty of the House Itself
The setting of The Ancestral is an old, isolated mansion deep in rural Vietnam. It is not just a backdrop. It is a living, breathing character. The memories that house holds are reflected in the creaking floors, dim corridors, and heavy air.
Production designer Hoang Huy Tuan spent months searching for the ideal site and eventually chose an abandoned French colonial house. But it posed real challenges. The crew complained about electrical problems and noise disturbances during night shoots. The locals warned the crew about the house, saying it had a reputation for hauntings — and not for movie ghosts.
Le Van Kiet has confirmed that the set had an eerie energy. “Even the actors didn’t want to stay inside during breaks,” he said. “We joked about it at first, but there were moments when we really felt watched.”
The experience mirrored the film’s theme — that what we can’t see still shapes us.
The Daughters Who Became the Heart of the Film
If Quang Tuấn gave The Ancestral its emotional foundation, the young actresses Mai Cát Vi and Lâm Thanh Mỹ gave it its soul. Both children deliver hauntingly mature performances, balancing innocence and terror in scenes that could easily have become melodramatic.
Mai Cát Vi, who played the elder daughter, had already worked with Le Van Kiet in Furie, where she played Veronica Ngo’s kidnapped child. Here, however, she carried much heavier emotional material — depicting nightmares, grief, and confusion with startling subtlety.
Kiet later admitted that he was initially hesitant about exposing such young actors to dark material. “We spent a lot of time explaining that the film was about love, not fear,” he said. The team made sure the children understood the emotional tone of the scenes rather than the horror imagery.
That sensitivity paid off — because the girls’ performances became the emotional center of the film, echoing how children often inherit unspoken pain in real families. Indian audiences, particularly those familiar with films like Masoom or Taare Zameen Par, could deeply relate to that portrayal of children silently carrying their parents’ burdens.
A Horror That Feels Too Close to Home
Unlike Western horror that often relies on gore or shock, The Ancestral is steeped in cultural superstition — family shrines, ancestral altars, spiritual rituals. These are not just exotic elements for international audiences; they are emotional anchors for anyone from a culture where the dead still live through memory.
Indian critics who reviewed the film noted this familiarity. One film blogger compared it to the emotional tone of Indian supernatural dramas like Maya (Tamil) and Bulbbul (Hindi), where spirits represent trauma rather than evil. “It’s not about ghosts,” the review wrote. “It’s about the past refusing to be forgotten.”
The film’s central question — can you move forward if you’ve never faced your ancestors’ pain? — is something Indian families, with their mix of spirituality and silence, have long wrestled with.
The Challenges Not Shown on Camera
The Ancestral was no easy production behind the cameras either. First, there was the pressure on Le Van Kiet because Furie (2019) was an international success. Fans and production companies were waiting for another action-packed thriller, and not a psychological horror slow-burn. Some financiers were anxious because they thought that the self-reflective nature of the film would not appeal to a broad audience.
Due to poorly allocated budgets, the writing and production of several scenes had to be adapted to the constraints. The visual effects, which merged realism and dreamlike hallucination to an effect of subtlety, were produced under time pressure. The score, composed by Christopher Wong, who is known for his haunting, minimalist soundscapes, was even created remotely because of pandemic restrictions.
Looking at the emotional toll on the cast, Quang Tuấn reportedly isolated himself before pivotal scenes in order to authentically portray the character’s grief. In the midst of the shoot, however, Mai Cát Vi started having recurring nightmares. Kiet also opened up about how the story’s themes started to take a toll on him personally: “I started dreaming about my own family, about the things we never talked about.”
The Emotional Aftermath
When The Ancestral was released on Netflix following its premiere in Vietnam, the response was emotional and surprising. The emotional weight and sadness of the film, in addition to the horror, was something spectators acknowledged. “It’s about every father who’s trying to protect his children from his own pain,” one viewer stated. In India, the film was called “the kind of horror that stays in your chest, not in your nightmares,” and was praised for its quiet power.
The media buzz for the film was because it sought to get the audience to think instead of just trying to scare them. The film sparked conversation on social media about family grief, ancestral homes and memories, and loss. The Ancestral served as a cultural bridge, demonstrating that grief, guilt, and memory are universal.
The Echo That Never Fades
For Le Van Kiet and his crew, The Ancestral became more than just a new project; it became a personal journey. They worked through their own apprehensions, memories, and belief, and it showed. It is a ghost story, but a haunting one, not just about the ghosts, but also about the people who bear them.
In India, where so much of life continues to be about what we inherit, The Ancestral feels disturbingly close. It whispers to every generation the one truth we all know: sometimes the scariest part of our past isn’t that it is gone, it’s that it is still here, entombed in the walls, waiting to be heard.
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