The government has approved the production of two films on Ho Chi Minh, ‘Hanh trinh Qua Ba Be’ (Journey Across Three Oceans) and ‘Nhin ra Bien ca’ (Looking Out To Sea), to celebrate his 120th birthday on May 19 next year.

The Chinese Zhou Jiang Group and the Vietnam Writers’ Association will make the first film as a possible sequel to ‘Nguyen Ai Quoc in Hong Kong’, which was first screened six years ago. It will follow milestones in the life of Nguyen Ai Quoc (later Vietnamese President) when he left Hong Kong for Shanghai and Xiamen.

The historical figures portrayed in the film will include Chinese Song Qingling and Vietnamese revolutionaries such as Nguyen Luong Bang and Ho Tung Mau. The editor-in-chief of the French Newspaper L’Humanite, Vailant Cuturie, who helped establish the French Communist Party together with Nguyen Ai Quoc, will also appear in the film.

Fictional characters include an assassin and his younger sister. The man is hired by the French colonialists to assassinate Ho Chi Minh while his sister serves as Ho Chi Minh’s nurse and also his secret protector.

The association took charge of writing the film script and translating it into Chinese. A Chinese scriptwriter edited the original.

One of the writers said actor Tran Luc, who played Quoc in ‘Nguyen Ai Quoc in Hong Kong’, is unavailable for the sequel but he will direct the second film, which will be produced by the Cinematography Association Studio.

The scriptwriter for ‘Nhin ra Bien ca’, Nguyen Thi Hong Ngat, who is also the director of the studio, said she will “try to portray Nguyen Tat Thanh (Ho Chi Minh when young), who looked like many normal teachers but was a special teacher at the time.”