Original subtitles

[guitar feedback, cheering]

["The Final Countdown" guitar riff]

[cheering]

[wrong notes]

Tonight is the 20th anniversary of Sagometal,

a Vietnamese band fronted by the veteran Trung Thanh Sago.

Twenty years makes Sagometal the oldest band in town,

but despite the anniversary, this show is being played in a tiny coffee shop,

in front of just a few dozen fans.

[piercing feedback noise]

[moody piano riff]

[heavy metal riff]

Metal music never caught in Vietnam the same way it did

in nearby countries like Thailand or Indonesia.

[growled vocals]

The country's violent past should suit the anger of metal perfectly,

but most locals haven't even heard of the genre.

The question is, why not?

When we asked around, without fail,

we were told to go speak with Trung Thanh Sago.

[screamed vocals]

[distant traffic]

We met Trung Thanh at his home,

which could easily be mistaken for a local restaurant,

except for the electric guitar coming from upstairs.

[electric guitar riff]

[guitar solo]

[playing Metallica - Enter Sandman]

[fuzzy guitar riff]

[classic rock style song]

[Star-Spangled Banner riff]

[guitar solo]

[karaoke style music]

[fast-paced rock music]

[guitar solo]

[cheering]

[hard rock guitar solo]

[singing in Vietnamese]

[hard rock guitar solo]

[hard rock music]

[The Sound of Silence riff]

[Sagometal - Giac Mo Tuyet Voi]

[pensive Vietnamese rock music]

[climactic growled Vietnamese vocals]

[heavy metal riff]

Trung Thanh had the cards stacked against him.

Rock music was prohibited for years,

his old bandmates fled or died,

but bad hands and a shoddy venue still couldn't stop him

from putting on a damn good show.

[heavy metal music]

Vietnamese heavy metal started with Sago's generation,

but as they grew older, they must have passed the torch to someone.

Who was brave enough to march against the tide of society?

(Alright, good to continue when you are.)

(You ready?)

[intense grindcore music]

As it turns out, there was a time not too long before

when extreme metal made real headway in Vietnam.

And this man played a big part.

Trung Loki: CEO of Bloody Chunks Records,

and founding member of three grindcore bands that toured Southeast Asia,

an unprecedented level of success for the scene.

[grindcore music]

[brutal metal music]

(Do people ever judge you or think badly of you)

(because you listen to this type of music?)

[growled vocals]

(We were talking to other metal musicians and they told us about)

(a time in the past when the government just banned metal completely.)

[sinister laughter]

[brutal death metal]

[brutal death metal]

[brutal metal riff]

(A long time ago...)

[traffic]

A proper local scene had begun to form around Loki's bands,

and extreme metal was closer than ever to the Vietnamese mainstream.

Another man who saw it all was Wừu bassist Siêu Dê Cụ.

He told us about his time in Wừu, and how it all started.

[intense grindcore music]

[brutal metal, rapping]

[heavy grindcore music]

[heavy grindcore music]

[heavy grindcore music]

As well as Wừu did, they weren't around anymore.

On our next trip to meet Trung, we came

with a case of Saigon beer, ready to dive deep,

and learn the rest of the story.

(My one weakness!)

(Here's to that.)

[Vietnamese banter]

[brutal metal riff]

[unintelligible growling]

[brutal death metal riff]

[intense grindcore music]

[traffic]

(He's talked about his problems with going to rehab...)

(...was that the reason why he disappeared, yeah?)

[traffic]

(The scene in Saigon, do you feel close to it?)

(Or do you feel far away from the... the scene?)

[brutal metal riff]

First impressions of Pleiku?

Yeah... I mean... it looks like a Vietnamese town, like.

It does. It does look like a Vietnamese town.

I'd... say that's an accurate assessment.

Pleiku is a sleepy highlands town,

and the home of Trung Loki and Bok Wừu.

Twelve years earlier, metalheads had brought a concert here,

and now Loki made a comeback for the sequel: Pleiku Metalhood II.

[intense grindcore music]

[intense grindcore music]

[drunken chatter]

[heavy metal music]

[unintelligible Vietnamese]

[brutal metal music]

Are you ready?

[brutal metal music]

Thank you and goodbye!

(Ahh... that was quality.)

(Yeah, was it a good show?)

Yeah we're, we're making a film about the...

...about, about heavy metal.

So, how was the show!?

How was the show boys, was it good?

[chatter]

[traffic noise]

[restaurant chatter]

[birds chirping]

Loki's generation never realized its full potential,

and the metalheads of Vietnam were isolated from the international scene

again.

Mainstream Vietnam continued to happily ignore their music

in favor of EDM and K-pop.

But, as Trung told us:

You can never kill metal. Metal never dies.

We found Legacy, an agency of young musicians

hellbent on taking the scene to new heights.

Oh shit...

Uh, so...

(Ah, let's have a look here...)

[unintelligible Vietnamese]

(Do you ever practice with the guitar man, or just play bass?)

(Does anyone need another beer?)

(Only just started mine.)

(Got a nice stack of cigarettes here.)

(What's your job at Legacy?)

(You boys, do you mosh?)

(Any stage diving?)

(Three times? Not bad!)

[heavy metal music]

[traffic noise]

[brutal death metal riff]

The agency's next bold move came out:

on short notice, they were going to host German band Defeated Sanity.

by far their biggest name to date.

A technical brutal death metal gig sounds dark to start with,

but we weren't expecting the darkness to be so... literal.

[chatter]

[guitar being tuned]

(So what happens if there’s no electricity, will you play acoustic?)

(They said they would.)

[imitates heavy metal guitar]

(Have you had any updates from the power people?)

(They told you five o’clock, and then silence?)

I mean, if we get to sound check we’ll be able to figure it out.

Does this have a tap tempo on it?

Okay, perfect.

[brutal death metal music]

Vietnam! We're Defeated Sanity!

[cheering]

You won't play shows like this anywhere else.

You know, you go through some bullshit on a daily basis,

and like, the playing conditions sometimes...

The circumstances are harder,

but it's more rewarding once you play on stage.

It's very different. The vibe is totally different.

I feel more appreciated here because we're, like,

coming from far away I guess, maybe people have not expected

to see us, and they appreciate it more.

You know, in the United States and in Europe, you know,

it's "a show," it's whatever. But you guys made like a spectacle of it!

And we hope we can come back, we can just spread the word

to any other band to come here, cause it's fucking awesome.

We played in Vietnam, that's crazy!

[street sounds]

[brutal death metal]

(And you have a big band coming in May, right?)

(Who's that?)

[laughter]

Whitechapel: highly successful American deathcore band.

Four chart-topping albums.

Millions of followers.

And Legacy booked them to Saigon.

Just like that, they moved from small local gigs,

to hosting what could be Vietnam's biggest extreme metal show yet.

(This isn't gonna be out before then.)

(Nah don't worry, it's cool.)

Legacy went big for the Whitechapel venue,

booking a location with a capacity of over one thousand people.

Attendances for Saigon metal shows rarely exceeded one or two hundred,

so Legacy were banking on Whitechapel drawing a big crowd.

[crowd chattering]

[heavy metal music]

[intense heavy metal music]

[applause]

[heavy metal music reverberating]

[applause]

(Are you disappointed?)

[drunken banter]

After the disappointing Whitechapel show,

Legacy didn't host any more international bands,

and the agency called it quits.

Hysterical Buffalo have since disbanded.

Trung Loki planned to headline Pleiku Metalhood III with his band ROT,

but he "disappeared" before the show, forcing his band

to find a last-minute replacement.

As of this film's completion, his whereabouts were unknown.

But...

...for all that chaos, tragedy and struggle...

there's still one rocker out there in Saigon, keeping the classics alive.

[playing The Final Countdown]

[tapped guitar riff]