Tralee man delves deep into the Vietnamese heavy metal scene in new documentary

THE Vietnamese heavy metal scene is a subject that you would rarely, if ever, hear or let alone think about over the course of your day-to-day life.

But for Tralee man Sean Lambe, this niche subject is one he and his fellow filmmakers have spent the last three years of their lives documenting.

Sean is a native of Oakpark in Tralee and, along with his partners in film-making Will Snyder and Mateu Perpinya, has created the ‘Saigon Metalhood’ documentary.

The 63-minute long film is divided into three chapters: Past, Present, and Future, told through a combination of personal interviews, archival footage, and concert narratives:

In Past, grizzled grandfather of the scene Trung Thanh Sago shares his unique insight into the untold history of Vietnamese metal; Present looks at Trung Loki, the brooding vanguard of the scene’s most successful era – but will his mistakes during a dark past leave him with an isolated future? And finally, in future, young metal entrepreneurs form an agency with an ambitious goal. Is it possible to make Vietnamese metal internationally relevant?

Together, the three guys, Sean, Will and Mateu, are known as ‘Irregular Film’ for their desire to stray from the well-worn path when it comes to looking for subjects to document.

And this time, Sean, Will and Mateu dove head-first into the heavy metal scene of a country that for years turned its nose up at a genre of music that was seen as having too much of a ‘dangerous western influence’.

Speaking to The Kerryman, Sean said that his own interest in heavy metal can be traced back, like so many other Kerry locals, to the KDYS gig scene that flourished in Tralee when he was a teenager.

And while he admits that he does not listen to that genre of music as often anymore, it still holds a special place in his heart.

Sean, Will and Mateu spent three years making ‘Saigon Metalhood’ and as Sean, who operated as director/producer on the project, admitted, it wasn’t always an easy task.

“I think what made this subject interesting to me was that, even in the West, where metal comes from, it’s still seen as kind of a niche subject.

“I thought it was interesting to see that Vietnam, which has a very foreign culture, I wanted to see how metal interacted with that culture and what their interpretation of it was,” said Sean.

“It’s very much a hidden sub-culture over there. The majority of Vietnamese people, they just see it as ‘noise’ and they’re just quite confused by it if anything,” he said.

For Sean and the guys, the film was initially supposed to be just a short 10-minute-long film but as they delved deeper and deeper into the metal scene, they met more and more characters and more stories, and they decided that this was something that needed to be explored in more depth.

“We just planned to make a ten-minute video about the first guy, Trung Thanh Sago, about his life, so we started going to concerts to get some footage of his band and then we started to see the other metal bands that were playing.

The scene there is very hard to find, they don’t advertise themselves well. They play in like small coffee shops. There isn’t any real venues for them,” said Sean.

“We met some other bands and we thought, ‘hey, these guys are pretty good’ and so we expanded the scope of the film. It did become quite difficult in the end to make because it grew out so much and it had a few different forms. Some of the bands were a little bit reluctant to talk to us on camera.

“Off camera, they’d be slagging each other off, but as soon as the camera turned on, they’d clam up,” said Sean with a laugh.

After much deliberation between the trio, they decided that the strength of the film was in the human side of the metal scene, the characters that they had met along the way, and this decision allowed them to shape the finished film.

“Once we found all of the characters that we did, it was a lot easier then to put the threads of the story together.

“I’m very happy with how it has turned out because I feel that it’s quite different than a lot of other music documentaries and especially a lot of other metal documentaries out there,” he continued.

“A lot of metal documentaries will focus on like the ‘rock on’ stuff; we tried to keep focus on the characters instead and the humans in the scene.

“The music is the thread that links them all together, but I really do think that it’s very much a character-based documentary, which is what we wanted to go for from the start,” said Sean.

So far, Sean says that the film has received great reviews from those who’ve seen it, and he admits that it’s somewhat lucky that they released it during a worldwide lockdown because there’s a lot more reviewers with free time on their hands to watch it now that there are no theatrical releases.

“We had a few reviewers get in touch, and we’ve had a couple of reviews written up that are to come in the next few weeks.

“They have all been overwhelmingly positive so far, which is really fantastic to hear because it’s such a niche subject that you do worry about people being put off by it,” he said.

For those interested in seeing ‘Saigon Metalhood’, it is now available to rent or buy over on Vimeo; it costs just €6.66 to rent and €8 to buy, and for those looking for more on Sean, Will and Mateu, then they can head over to their ‘Irregular Film’ Facebook page for anymore updates.

The trailer for ‘Saigon Metalhood’ is currently up on The Kerryman Facebook page for anyone who wants to see it.

We tried to keep focus on the characters instead and the humans in the scene. The music is the thread that links them all together. I really do think that it’s very much a character based documentary.

ABOVE: Tralee man Sean Lambe, who worked as director and producer on ‘Saigon Metalhood’. RIGHT: Trung Loki, one of three main characters that Sean chose to focus on during his documentary on the Vietnamese heavy metal scene.

A still from ‘Saigon Methalhood’ which is currently available to rent or buy on ‘Vimeo’.