HCM CITY — Seventy-year-old poet Pham Thien Thu's 3,325-line epic poem featuring great events in Vietnamese history and achievements of national heroes was published in HCM City last week.
Titled Hat Ru Viet Su Thi (Lullabies Featuring Vietnamese History), the poem is written in popular Vietnamese six-eight verse.
Thu, who is well-known in HCM City for love poems he has written since the 1970s, spent nearly 10 years to complete the poem.
Many Vietnamese poems with soothing rhymes like Thu's epic poem have been used as songs to lull babies to sleep.
Thu starts his poem with legends about King Hung who founded Viet Nam and ends it with glorious victories of King Quang Trung and his Tay Son troops over the Qing dynasty's 200,000-strong military force in the spring of 1789.
The 250-page Hat Ru Su Thi Viet was issued by the HCM City-based Thanh Nien Publishing Co.
One-minute films feature real life
HA NOI — A series of short documentaries about daily life are currently being broadcast on Viet Nam Television's VTV1.
The show, One Minute in Fact, encourages viewers to contribute video clips.
"The documentaries last for only one minute, but it can still contain a meaningful message," said Phan Huyen Thu, general director of the programme. "It should be a message to remind people about truth and beauty. The clips contain no dubbed commentary."
The clips cover daily issues, including the drawbacks of economic development and urbanisation, poverty, education, domestic violence, and inspirational stories.
The editorial board of the programme has completed 60 documentaries, of which most of people filmed were not aware that they were on camera.
The shorts are broadcast at 6.53pm everyday from Monday to Friday. After three months of trial screenings, there will be a competition mobilising viewers to contribute clips. The programme is sponsored by Viet Nam Post and Telecommunications and Viet Nam Television.
Latest 3D movie set to hit this summer
HCM CITY — Gru, the latest animated character from the American film studio, Universal Pictures, is set to fire up kids' imaginations when he hits the big screen in 3D this summer.
The animated film Despicable Me opens today at Megastar cineplexes across the country.
Unlike most protagonists, particularly those in animated movies, Gru is an evil character and probably the first one meant to educate children about love, responsibility and the best of human nature.
He is fond of wicked things and takes pride in evil plots. He is not happy being a second-rank criminal and dreams of taking over the number-one position in the world of evil.
To this end, he plans the biggest theft ever: to steal the moon with his army of minions and invincible weaponry of shrink-rays, freeze-rays and battle-ready land and air vehicles.
However, Gru never expects that the three orphans whom he adopted, not the world's premier evil guy Vector, would stand in his way of his ambitions.
With their serene innocence, playfulness and indomitable will, Margo, Edith and Agnes bring to life a dormant talent that Gru was never conscious of: his capacity to be a good father.
The unlikely scenario leaves the viewer wondering how the evil man, faced with the biggest challenge in his life, will struggle with the idea that he may become the hero he never wanted to be. — VNS