Key Takeaways
Toei, one of Japan's three major film studios, is partnering with Lotte's film subsidiaries to enter Vietnam's growing movie market.
The deal covers both co-producing new films and remaking existing titles from Toei's library.
Lotte's biggest advantage is its local reach, including 46 cinemas in Vietnam and a team familiar with the market.
Japan and South Korea are joining forces in Vietnam's film business in a more concrete way. Toei, one of Japan's best-known movie studios, has formed a partnership with Lotte Group's film units to pursue not only distribution, but also co-production and remakes.
The arrangement goes beyond simply importing a film overseas. Because it ties together production, distribution, and local adaptation, it offers a useful glimpse into where Asia's content industry may be heading next.
Why Vietnam matters for a movie studio
Toei is one of Japan's three major film studios, alongside Toho and Shochiku. Founded in 1951, it has produced more than 4,000 theatrical films and holds a deep library of older titles. Its decision to target Vietnam was not random. Vietnam is attractive not only because of growth potential, but because the country's audience base and distribution channels are expanding quickly.
Lotte brings a different strength to the table. Lotte Group has a production team that knows the Vietnam market well, and it operates 46 cinemas there. International expansion is difficult for a studio acting alone. Even strong content can struggle if a company lacks screens, timing, or a clear sense of local taste. That reality appears to have shaped Toei's choice of partner.
Another reason this deal matters is Toei's intellectual property portfolio. In film, a strong back catalog is not just a record of the past. It is a source of stories and characters that can be reshaped for another market with less risk than starting from scratch. In other words, a studio with proven material can move faster and test new audiences more safely.
Remakes can travel far, but only if they feel local
Toei said the partnership will focus on two areas: co-producing new films and remaking existing ones. On paper, that is a natural fit between Toei's content assets and Lotte's local distribution network. But remakes are rarely easy. The better known the original, the more demanding local audiences can be, and adaptation that ignores cultural differences can dilute the appeal of the source material.
Toei pointed to the film Love for Beginners as an example. It was remade in China and, according to Nikkei, went on to generate more than 74 billion yen, or about 630.5 million dollars, in global box office revenue. The figure shows how intellectual property can multiply across borders. At the same time, one success does not guarantee that every remake will work the same way.
In Vietnam, success will depend on more than translation. Audiences want to feel the rhythm of their own language, emotions, and urban life. For co-productions and remakes to truly work, Japanese precision and Vietnamese sensitivity will have to meet in the middle. If only one side's style dominates, the project risks feeling like an imported product instead of a locally lived story.
Vietnam as a testbed for Asian content alliances
This partnership matters because it brings together a Japanese studio and Korean distribution capital in one fast-growing market. Japan is often associated with story and intellectual property, while Korean companies are seen as stronger in production, distribution, and operating within local markets. Add Vietnam to that mix, and the content business begins to look less like a simple export model and more like a networked regional system.
That said, such partnerships do not always succeed. Big capital does not automatically move audiences. One common mistake in overseas expansion is to focus on market size while underestimating subtle differences in local taste. Lotte's 46-cinema network in Vietnam reduces that risk, but it does not eliminate it.
A calculated expansion, not a quick gamble
Toei's move looks like a carefully managed expansion strategy. Rather than fighting directly in the biggest markets, it is entering through a partner with established local footing and sharing the risk. That approach may seem slow, but in content business it is often more realistic. For a company with a valuable archive of older titles, it can be smarter to let those stories gain new life through localization than to burn through brand value by forcing them into a market too quickly.
In the end, this deal is not really about a few individual films. It signals a shift in how the business is done: from selling a finished work abroad to combining local distribution, production know-how, and remake capabilities from the outset. Toei and Lotte's Vietnam push looks like an early test of that model, and its success will depend on how convincingly future projects can be remade for Vietnamese audiences.
