The 4 Rascals 2025 Movie Review
Tran Thanh’s “The 4 Rascals” (Bo Tu Bao Thu) has taken the Vietnamese box office by storm, becoming the country’s highest-grossing film of the year and breaking records at an unprecedented pace. The film’s rapid financial success, surpassing 100 billion VND in just three days and crossing the 300 billion VND ($12M) mark within 12 days, highlights, once more, that Tran Thanh is the undisputed king of Vietnamese box office. Now, with an expansive release in nearly 300 theaters across North America and Europe, “The 4 Rascals” marks a historic moment for Vietnamese cinema on the global stage, as it has become the biggest box office success in North America for a Vietnam-produced film.
The movie begins as a story about the rivaling friendship of two women, Kieu, who also narrates the story, and Quynh Anh. However, as soon as her narration reaches the point when her friend met and eventually moved in with a rising banker, Quoc Anh, the focal point changes completely, with the relationship taking center stage. Eventually, and after a series of scenes that showcase how Quoc Anh is annoyed by many things Quynh Anh does, including her relatives and friends, the main topic of the movie emerges. The young woman thinks her beau is cheating on her with Karen, a rather beautiful woman he met in his line of work. In order to discover what exactly is going on, she employs the help of the four rascals: Kieu herself, Cau Muoi Mot, Di Bon and a psychic who goes by Jessica despite being a man (arguably the four rascals could be perceived as having Quynh Anh in the place of Jessica, but that is for the viewer to decide). What follows is a situational, episodic comedy of epic proportions, that occasionally crosses into drama, romance and crime territory.
The film excels in several key aspects. The most obvious one is the cast and particularly the chemistry among the four rascals, whose rapid delivery of lines and continuous antics essentially dictate the rhythm of the whole movie. Tran Thanh himself as Cau Moi, Le Giang as Di Bon, Uyen An as Kieu and Le Duong Bao Lam as Jessica are all a treat to watch every time they appear on screen, with the comedy deriving from their shenanigans being one of the most entertaining aspects of the movie.
Furthermore, the romantic triangle shaped between Quynh Anh, Quoc Anh and Karen is rather intriguing, with the way the initial relationship moves into comedic territory and the second into more dramatic working quite well for the film. It also helps that the three actors are especially attractive, with Ky Duyen as Karen in particular being utterly gorgeous (she is a former Miss Vietnam after all), a trait DP Linh Dan Nguyen Phan definitely exploits through a number of close ups to her face. Quoc Anh in the same-name role is also attractive, justifying the apple of discord role he has in the film, while Tran Tieu Vy as Quynh Anh has this girl-next-door beauty that also makes her quite appealing. The interactions of the three, particularly in the one-on-one moments they fight are truly memorable, in another of the traits of the movie.
The comment about beauty, and how it makes some things easier in life but is not a guarantee for happiness is also intriguing in its realism, with the relationship between the two friends focusing on it in the best way.
The visuals are on a very high level too, with Linh Dan Nguyen Phan capturing the many different settings through a fittingly polished approach. The DP does overdo it on occasion with the close ups, but not to a degree to make his approach annoying in any way, additionally due to the aforementioned attractiveness of the protagonists. The editing results in a pace that is fast most of the time, although calmer moments do exist. The cuts on occasion are part of the humor in their abruptness.
At the same time, when the movie moves away from its traits, and towards (melo) dramatic, somewhat didactic paths, both the rhythm and the quality deteriorates, essentially stressing the fact that “The 4 Rascals” could have been better if it was briefer than 132 minutes. On the other hand, Tran Thanh handles the transitions in genre (comedy, romance, drama, action, crime) nicely, in an effort that adds to the entertainment the movie offers, keeping it intriguing for the majority of its duration, a trait that should also be attributed to the editing.
Although some issues do exist in “The 4 Rascals”, particularly since the effort here is quite ambitious, the sum of pros and cons definitely leans heavily towards the former, resulting in a rather entertaining movie that is, additionally, particularly pleasant to the eye.
