Bunny!!

Bunny!! Blow-Up: Inside Vietnam’s Messiest Hit Thriller

latestnetflix.com's take is that Vietnam’s box office bunny didn’t just hop – it detonated.From “stolen jobs” and leaked salaries to emotionally destroyed actors and an old LGBTQ+ scandal resurfacing, the drama behind Bunny!! (Thỏ Ơi!!) might be juicier than the movie itself.

Casting Chaos: “Amateur” Stars vs Drama Students

When Trấn Thành unveiled his cast for Bunny!!, Vietnamese social media went straight to WAR.

• On Threads and local entertainment sites, critics accused the film of letting pop stars and influencers “steal jobs” from drama-school graduates. The lightning rods: singer LyLy, powerhouse vocalist Văn Mai Hương, and rapper Phao – all famous, all new to acting, all suddenly starring in a prestige Tết movie .
• Commenters complained that famous singers with built-in fandoms were being handed opportunities that properly trained theater/cinema students could only dream of, turning Bunny!! into Exhibit A in the “art vs market” fight .
• Trấn Thành’s response? Savage. In an interview, he basically told aspiring actors: no one is stealing your job – you’re just not grabbing it hard enough.
• He argued that “amateur” actors don’t “take” roles from students; everyone has to fight for opportunities, and “opportunity never runs into your hands on its own” .
• He dragged in his own origin story: no one helped him become a top MC, no one funded his first films, he had to hustle and pay for his own projects .
• And about casting the singers? He said the roles “chose them”, claiming their personalities already contained the characters – he just invited them to audition and followed the “evidence,” not luck or clout .

Bottom line: while drama students on social media cried “unfair”, Trấn Thành publicly doubled down that he’ll cast whoever he believes can explode on screen – diploma or not.

On-Set Drama: “Victims” of Trấn Thành’s Extreme Direction

If you thought the casting fight was fierce, the behind-the-scenes stories make Whiplash look like a yoga retreat.

• In a feature from VOV, the young cast openly “accused” Trấn Thành of being obsessively intense on set – in a half-joking, half-traumatized tone .
• Văn Mai Hương said Trấn Thành constantly acted out scenes himself, correcting every beat so emotions would “flow naturally” and look like “acting without acting” .
• Actors described working without fully detailed scripts – often just a story skeleton – and being forced to react instinctively in the moment under his micro-direction .

• Rapper Phao had arguably the roughest time:
• She revealed that “every time” she appeared, she was banged up or bruised from physical scenes .
• Coming from being “daddy’s princess” at home, she admitted that just hearing someone raise their voice could make her cry – and on Bunny!! she ended up in such a state of anxiety that she couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and wandered around in a daze worrying about her performance .

• Vinh Dam, the towering 1.92m model-turned-actor playing the male lead, described filming as emotional combat:
• He said some scenes were shot so many times he felt like a “ticking time bomb,” with cold hands and feet and a pale face from the pressure .

• Other cast members chimed in:
• Several said the lack of rigid dialogue and reliance on improvisation under Trấn Thành's real-time direction was both creatively freeing and absolutely terrifying .

One viral behind-the-scenes clip even ran with the headline: **“BREAKING NEWS: Thỏ Ơi!! cast officially confirms they are ‘victims’ of director Trấn Thành”** – a tongue-in-cheek way of admitting the man worked them to the emotional bone .

Scandals & Controversies: Apologies, Paychecks, and “Tin Vịt”

The LGBTQ+ Comment That Came Back to Haunt

The film’s handsome male lead Vinh Dam didn’t step into the spotlight with a clean slate.

• Old social media posts resurfaced showing controversial remarks about the LGBTQ+ community, made when he was 18. The comments were described as impulsive, immature, and hurtful, especially to queer viewers .
• Dam had already publicly apologized in 2023, but once he was announced as Trấn Thành’s male lead, the controversy roared back to life and forced him to address it again in early 2026 .
• In his renewed apology, Dam:
• Admitted his words were said in anger and “lacked calmness”,
• Insisted he never intended to disrespect LGBTQ+ people but fully acknowledged the negative impact,
• Asked audiences to give him a chance to grow and prove he can do better .
• Trấn Thành said he hadn’t known about the old statements when he cast Dam, but stressed that young people say stupid things and that what matters is their attitude after apologizing and their willingness to mature .

So while Bunny!! was conquering the box office, its leading man was simultaneously fighting for a second chance in the court of public opinion.

The “Insane Salary” Leak That Trấn Thành Called Out

Then came the money drama.

In early March 2026, a “leaked” salary table for the Bunny!! cast started flying around Vietnamese social media:

• It claimed:
• LyLy pulled in a massive 1.2 billion VND (around $48,000),
• Phao scored 700 million VND,
• Quốc Anh got 600 million VND,
• Văn Mai Hương took 500 million VND,
• while supposed male lead Vinh Dam was way below them at 250–300 million VND .

Fans went wild dissecting who “deserved” what… until Trấn Thành entered the chat.

• On his fanpage, he flatly denied the numbers, calling the viral chart “trật lất” (totally off) and complaining that people “just post whatever they want without checking the truth” .
• Major outlets reported that, after his statement, the list was widely dismissed as “tin vịt” – fake news .
• The only official figure that stuck: the film’s budget was around $2 million (over 50 billion VND), with reports emphasizing how much went into production design and costumes, not wild cast payouts .
• Phao also chimed in that money wasn’t her main concern when she agreed to act – she was more focused on the chance to prove herself .

So yes, the checks are probably nice. But that viral chart? According to Trấn Thành, pure fan fiction.

Reputation Drama: Amateur Cast, Tough Love & “Stolen Jobs”

Beyond the formal “jobs vs students” debate, Bunny!! became a lightning rod for bigger questions about Vietnamese cinema.

• Vietnamese entertainment outlets noted that Bunny!!’s cast is a deliberate gamble on “amateurs” and cross-over stars – BB Trần, Cris Phan, Gil Lê, LyLy, Phao, etc. – and that this strategy “shocks” and divides audiences .
• One article bluntly framed it: the cast are neither traditional theater actors nor complete nobodies – they’re singers, influencers, and multi-hyphenate talents Trấn Thành is determined to turn into credible dramatic performers .
• Another piece highlighted that LyLy, Phao, and Văn Mai Hương all described serious pressure working under Trấn Thành’s standards, but also acknowledged it forced them to level up .

Add this to the “they’re stealing opportunities” backlash, and Bunny!! effectively turned into a live case study in how far you can bend the star system before the theater kids revolt.

Media & Fan Buzz: Suspicious Reviews and Viral Moments

Even outside Vietnam, Bunny!! sparked whispers and eye-rolls in niche film corners.

• A UK-based critic site pointed out that on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie had just ONE extremely glowing review, calling it “an excellent and suspenseful psychological drama” – and dubbed it “suspiciously positive” given the lack of a wider critical footprint, even as the film raked in record money at home .
• That same piece noted that at the time, the film didn’t even have a Wikipedia page, which only added to its “ghost hit” mystique for international film nerds .

Meanwhile, in Vietnam:

• Clips of Văn Mai Hương’s character furiously chewing out her on-screen husband and “blocking comments” in the film went viral, spawning memes about how she “curses better than she sings” – a backhanded compliment that ironically supercharged interest in the movie .
• Articles and pundits credited her sharp-tongued performance with “saving” the film for some skeptical viewers, proving that Trấn Thành’s gamble on a singer-turned-actress had, at least in her case, seriously paid off .

Wild Trivia: Emotional Fallout & Box Office Flex

A few more juicy tidbits from the Bunny-verse:

• Improvised Pain: Several cast members said they often didn’t get complete scripts, just the key beats of each scene, and had to improvise under Trấn Thành’s constant direction. That’s fun for an indie workshop – a lot less fun when it’s a high-stakes Tet blockbuster and the camera never stops rolling .

• Real Tears, Real Bruises: Phao essentially admitted a lot of what you see on screen is her actual emotional breakdown – she was that stressed, that exhausted, and that scared of not meeting expectations .

• Box Office Monster: Whatever you think of the drama, Bunny!! annihilated the box office – according to 3388 Films, it set the highest single-day gross ever in Vietnam and became the fastest film to reach about $3.8M domestically, before hopping its way into an international rollout .

In short: Bunny!! isn’t just a domestic thriller about love, lies, and emotional manipulation – it’s also a real-world saga about who gets to be a star, how far a director can push their cast, whether the internet should decide someone’s future over teenage mistakes, and just how fast gossip can spread when there’s billions of đồng and national pride on the line.

And if Trấn Thành’s track record is anything to go by, this probably isn’t his last cinematic scandal… just his loudest one yet.