Daydreamers doesn’t stray too far from vampire movie narratives we’ve seen before; there are warring clans of bloodsuckers, a brother versus brother face-off, and visits to flashy clubs stuffed with fang-faced partiers. But it’s one of very few vampire movies to come from Vietnam, which makes it a curiosity worth seeking out. And once you start watching, Daydreamers‘ stylish execution and ridiculously good-looking cast just might hook you in.
What you should not do is spend too much time worrying about the movie’s particular vampire “rules.” Basically, it comes down to this: there are two kinds of vampires roaming around contemporary Ho Chi Minh City. One group clings to the belief that if they resist killing humans and survive instead on animal blood, they may one day reverse the curse and walk freely in the sunlight again. (They are who the movie title refers to, if that wasn’t already obvious.)
It’s a lonely, angst-ridden existence, especially for Nhat (Tran Ngoc Vang), who doggedly keeps to his “blood trial” training, hoping to become human again. It’s something his late mother dreamed would be possible for him and his brother, Marco (Thuan Nguyen), but since her death the siblings have become estranged. Marco is now part of that other vampire clique: flashy, vapid, and glamorous, they have fun living undead life to the fullest and have no desire to revert back to mortality. They give off major Lost Boys vibes.
Thanks to the brief animated segment that Daydreamers opens with, we know that vampires have been around for hundreds of years but were nearly exterminated some time ago by revenge-seeking humans. To ensure their eternal survival, there’s a general shared agreement not to kill any humans, though not everyone sticks to that.
An even bigger no-no, however, is letting any non-vampire become aware of vampire existence. “Leave no witnesses” is a sacred creed, though it was either a failing of Daydreamers‘ subtitles or script that made this point a little confusing, since it seems to create a pretty gaping loophole for that whole “kill no humans” thing. Any vampire who dares spill the secret is also supposed to get taken out, which can be accomplished using silver weapons, a stake through the heart, or good old-fashioned sunlight.
Every vampire movie offers its own tweaks on genre lore, and Daydreamers leans really hard into its rules. You kind of wish it had just been “if we don’t kill humans we might heal ourselves” versus “hell yes, kill humans!”—and focused solely on Nhat versus Marco, rather than introducing a plot about Nhat falling for Ha, a human girl (Trinh Thao) he must protect once she accidentally figures out monsters are real.
It’s a forbidden romance, but Daydreamers unfortunately provides precious little evidence of sparks between Nhat and Ha, despite the fact that they’re willing to die for each other within days of meeting. There’s a much spicier connection between Marco and vampire queen Trieu (Vietnamese superstar Chi Pu); the latter in particular has a charismatic screen presence that makes you wish Daydreamers had shifted more of its focus her way.
At just under two hours, Daydreamers has a lot of time to explore the push and pull between Marco and Nhat, whose shared history goes back over 100 years (at one point, Nhat reveals he was last in school in 1895), but has come to a head with their mother’s tragic passing and Marco’s subsequent transformation into a murderous bad boy. At its core, Daydreamers is mostly fascinated with Nhat’s dilemma: he doesn’t want to die, but even after all this time, he also doesn’t know how to live—though he becomes very certain that Marco’s way is not for him.
Daydreamers takes place almost entirely at night, naturally, and it makes good use of that setting to lean into the neon-tinged glamour of eternal debauchery. The “vampire nightclub” trope was used to hilarious effect in What We Do in the Shadows, but Daydreamers plays it very straight. Perhaps that’s because the film hails from a culture that hasn’t already done vampire stories to death—or perhaps Daydreamers is a little too self-serious. Whatever the case, this movie is dripping with blood and eye candy in equal parts, and that’s a praise-worthy achievement even if the plot gets a little wobbly at times.
Daydreamers opens in select theaters May 2; it’ll hit all the major VOD platforms June 3.
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