In April 2026, Vietnam’s CJ CGV releases “Mr Hero”, a family comedy drama directed by Vo Thach Thao (“Cây Táo Nở Hoa”) starring Thai Hoa (“Hijack 78”), aka Vietnam’s ‘king of comedy’. Although Singapore’s Beach House Pictures (BHP) took something of a back seat in the noise around the film’s announcement, “Mr Hero” is nevertheless another happy marker in a multi-directional expansion strategy that ramps up as the company turns 20. 

In April 2026, Vietnam’s CJ CGV releases Mr Hero, a family comedy drama directed by Vo Thach Thao (Cây Táo Nở Hoa) starring Thai Hoa (Hijack 78), aka Vietnam’s ‘king of comedy’. Although it took a back seat in noise around the film’s announcement, for Singapore’s Beach House Pictures (BHP), Mr Hero is another happy marker in a multi-directional expansion strategy from its factual roots. It’s also part of a broad and exuberant approach to Vietnam’s film environment, which by many accounts will continue to thrive into 2026.  
 
“Tim Bui, the producer, brought us the Mr Hero project and we loved it and jumped on it,” Beach House Pictures’ founders Donovan Chan and Jocelyn Little said ahead of the company’s 20th anniversary celebration during ATF in Singapore. 

Mr Hero, announced in November 2025, is an international collaboration involving HK Film, V Pictures and BHP, which has been majority owned by Fremantle since early 2024. The film follows a hapless father’s unexpected thrust into the national spotlight after faking a heroic rescue to impress his daughter. BHP has also invested in Vietnamese film Dumb Luck, which goes into production in 2026. “We’re very active in Vietnam, and we intend to be more active there,” Chan says. 

Reasons? The array of talent, relatively attractive box office returns, and the ability to be part of the conversation shaping Vietnam’s film business internationally. Even if the numbers are comparatively modest, “there is growth and it’s sustaining, which is fantastic. And it isn’t expensive to make films in Vietnam,” he says. “What I think is changing is that audiences, like any other audience anywhere else in the world, are becoming savvier... and more sophisticated in picking the films they want to watch”. BHP is taking a similar approach to partnerships in Thailand and Indonesia. 

The question Chan and Little ask as they seek new alliances is: “What can we bring to the partnership that would be meaningful?”.  

BHP’s film strategy kicked off for real about two years ago. This followed the 2021 acquisition of a majority stake in Don’t Cry Butterfly producer, Momo Film Co. Buying into Momo was part of BHP’s push into scripted.  

BHP and Momo are currently developing their first premium series, Red Butterfly, based on a true story about an all-female gang run by two sisters in pre-independence Singapore. The eight-episode Chinese/English crime drama, announced in December 2024, has been commissioned by the CANAL+ group and STUDIOCANAL, and produced by STUDIOCANAL in partnership with BHP and Momo Film. Co-creators Constance Cheng (Rings of Power) and Kris Ong (Ajoomma) are writing the series, with Cheng on board as showrunner. The release date has not been confirmed.

Chan pinpoints the experience with feature documentary Elephant Odyssey as a turning point in BHP’s approach to feature film production. The IMAX feature releases in 2026. 

“We’ve done feature docs before, for Netflix for example, in the true-crime space. But thinking about it theatrically was new to us,” he says, adding that the IMAX experience encouraged them to explore other opportunities. “We decided that, hey, we understand how this works now, what can we bring to relationships that will work for both sides and then find projects that do that, like Mr. Hero and Dumb Luck. Then it makes perfect sense for us to be involved... we think theatrical, strategically with the right set of circumstances and script, should absolutely be a new thrust for Beach House’s business”. 

Another new direction is BHP’s maiden venture into the “creator economy” with unscripted formats and “genre hybrids” for YouTube and other direct-to-audience platforms. The two titles kicking this off are Model Creator and Cr1me C0de; both still in the works. In the October 2025 press release, Chan described the creator economy as “one of the most exciting frontiers today”.

A proprietary AI toolkit is also being created “to enhance our ability to tell stories without taking away the important human and creator element,” Chan says. “We believe we have to harness AI to help us be faster, stronger, more efficient, but we can’t replace the human storyteller.” 

Whatever BHP adds, factual remains a core focus and strength. “Factual has been a mainstay throughout our 20 years, and we’ll continue,” Little says. “We’re known for it.” 

▶ Published in ContentAsia's December 2025 Magazine