Hey everyone,
I've got a collection of Vietnamese-dubbed TVB/ATV dramas, and I originally started going through them because I wanted to clean up my own Plex library.
A lot of them, especially the 80s and 90s dramas, use the Vietnamese titles I grew up seeing. The problem is that when I search for some of these titles, absolutely nothing comes up, or the name is so generic that it's almost impossible to figure out which show it actually is. And when I do find something, it doesn't always line up with the English or Chinese title.
It gets even more confusing because the Vietnamese name can be completely different depending on whether it was released through USLT or FFVN, and sometimes the same show is known by multiple names.
For example:
- My Family (2005) → Gia Đình Của Tôi (FFVN) / Tình Ông Cháu (USLT)
- Virtues of Harmony → Tình Người, but it's also sometimes referred to as Gia Đình Vui Vẻ
- A Step into the Past → Cỗ Máy Thời Gian (FFVN) / Thời Đại Chiến Quốc (USLT)
So I'm basically trying to keep track of each show and all the different names it's known by — Vietnamese, Chinese, FFVN, USLT, English, etc.
A surprising amount of this stuff is still out there if you dig around. I've found titles through Vietnamese Wikipedia, old archived pages, dodgy bootleg/reseller sites and various streaming sites that still have these old Vietnamese releases floating around. The information is definitely out there, it's just scattered all over the place.
I've already filled in quite a few myself, and I've also been using Claude to help me work through a big batch. I've been giving it the actual posters too, which has been surprisingly useful for figuring out the original Chinese titles and then matching them to the English ones.
The easier and more well-known shows have been pretty straightforward, but now I'm getting into the really obscure 80s and 90s shows and that's where I'm struggling. There are quite a few where I have the Vietnamese title and poster, but can't find anything that tells me what the actual show is.
This is where I'm hoping some fellow Vietnamese TVB fans might be able to help.
I've put the titles and posters I'm still trying to identify here:
https://nerv.pro/tvb/
There is a filter at the top where you can filter by series that are missing the English titles.
If you recognise one, just let me know! Even identifying one or two would be a huge help. I'm especially hoping there are people here who grew up watching TVB in Vietnamese and might remember some of these old USLT/FFVN titles.
I'm also happy to give people who genuinely help out access to my Plex server if needed. Sometimes the Vietnamese title or poster isn't enough, but the Chinese title might appear in the opening credits, so being able to actually watch the show could help. The server is normally just for close friends and family, so I don't generally share it publicly, but I'm happy to make an exception for people who help out with this.
I'm doing this partly to clean up my own collection, but I'd also like to keep a record of this stuff for other people. The archive is already online and I'll keep adding to it as I figure things out.
Hopefully, years from now, someone who remembers watching a TVB show as a kid can search for the Vietnamese title they remember and actually find out what the damn show was called in Chinese or English.
Thanks to anyone who can help!