Song Lang 2018

In Ho Chi Minh City during the 1980s, Dung, nicknamed ‘Thien Loi’ – Liên Bỉnh Phát – works as a debt collector for Aunt Nga and does not hesitate to pressure those who fall behind, including a family with a husband, wife, and two small children. His world is steeped in the rough edges of urban life, where debt and duty collide with a fragile family history. His mother, Kiều Trinh as Hong Dieu, left the family when he was young, unable to endure the fallout of the cai luong life, while his father’s musical legacy lingers as a quiet memory of a world that once shaped him.

One day, Dung visits the Thien Ly cai luong theater to collect a debt from a pregnant member of the troupe. In a moment of cruelty, Dung pulls out the troupe’s stage costumes and even tries to burn them with gasoline, a stark display of power over people who already struggle to survive. The tension shifts when Linh Phung – Isaac, the male lead of the troupe – enters the scene. He intervenes, removing his watch and gold chain and offering them to Dung to settle the debt, but Dung does not take them and simply leaves. The encounter plants a seed of fascination in Dung, though the two remain strangers at this moment.

The next night, Dung buys tickets to see the cai luong My Chau – Trong Thuy, where Linh Phung plays Trong Thuy and Thuy Van himself performs as My Chau. Dung is drawn into Linh Phung’s artistry—the beauty of his voice and the power of his stage presence. After the show, Dung goes backstage and unexpectedly meets Linh Phung face to face. This time, Linh Phung returns the debt in a symbolic way, using money to pay off the troupe’s obligation to Dung. Amid this exchange, Dung’s life becomes entangled with Lan – Thanh Tú, one of Aunt Nga’s daughters, as their secret nighttime bond deepens, revealing a complicated layer to Dung’s rough exterior.

A scramble of life outside the theater unfolds when a quarrel erupts in a restaurant where Linh Phung is attacked by a hostile patron. Dung intervenes to defend him, and the two men’s fates become bound by more than debt or art. Around this time, Linh Phung reveals that his parents initially opposed his dream of becoming a cai luong artist, though they eventually accepted his choice. The couple’s shared moments of vulnerability are tempered by a cruel twist of fate: Linh Phung’s family tragedy strikes when the bus carrying his parents to a performance crashes, killing them and leaving him to carry on the legacy alone.

Back at Dung’s desk, Linh Phung discovers a sheet of lyrics written by Dung’s father tucked inside a beloved book that Linh Phung cherishes. When Dung asks Linh Phung to sing along with the words, Linh Phung hesitates because he cannot sing without musical accompaniment. In a tender turn, Dung retrieves the dan nguyet and song lang from a box and plays along, guiding Linh Phung through a memory of a man whose own marriage failed and whose wife left him. The moment rekindles a sense of duty and tradition in Linh Phung, who encourages Dung to return to cai luong, a path deeply rooted in their families’ histories.

The next morning, Linh Phung repairs a key and notices a necklace dangling from a lock, which he buys as a gift for Dung. Learning that the wife of the family whose debt he once chased committed suicide over the inability to pay, Dung makes a decisive choice: he sells his property to settle the debts and tells Aunt Nga that he intends to quit his job. That evening, Dung appears at the cai luong theater door with the guitar his father left behind, while Linh Phung is performing My Chau – Trong Thuy inside. As Dung stands at the doorstep, the husband of the deceased wife lunges forward and stabs him in the back, and Dung collapses. It rains heavily as an ambulance carries his body away, marking a tragic convergence of debt, art, and love.

When the play ends, Linh Phung steps out of the theater and walks home, the echoes of Dung’s fate lingering in the rain-soaked air. The night’s events fuse the two men’s destinies—one tethered to a family history of cai luong, the other to a present-day struggle between debt and devotion—and leave Linh Phung to navigate a future without the man who briefly revealed how deeply art and life can bleed into one another.