Vietnam's Cinema Department has told streaming services, social platforms and app stores to check the films and "short films" they carry and to stop distributing any that do not meet the country's film law. The instruction, Official Dispatch 1919/ĐA-VP, was issued on 25 September by the department, which sits under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and was reported by Thế Giới Điện Ảnh as online micro-dramas, many now made with AI, multiply.
The dispatch went to companies, public bodies and organisations that release films online, and to the operators of digital and intermediary platforms and app stores that offer films or film apps in Vietnam. The department said digital services had multiplied the ways and volume of online releases, much of it presented as "short films", and that it had found people and groups putting films online without meeting the legal conditions: who is allowed to distribute, how works are rated, how ratings are displayed, and the requirement to register film lists and rating results before release.
Under Article 21 of the 2022 Cinema Law, only businesses, public service units and organisations may distribute films online, and the department asked distributors to confirm they fall into that group. Platforms must review what is on their systems and block works from distributors that do not qualify, with the owners required to fix the gaps before putting them back. The department added that it is working with other agencies to inspect cases that look like violations.
Ratings are a central part of the order. Distributors carry legal responsibility for both content and rating. Those that classify their own films must, under Decree 131/2022, have a rating council, software or another approved mechanism, a way to update ratings, and the technical means to pause or remove a title when told to. Those that cannot do this must ask the ministry to rate any work without a rating licence or broadcast approval. Before release, film lists and ratings go into a national online database, and platforms must show age ratings and warnings, apply technical protections for children and let users report problem titles.
The outlet noted that on the same day reports listed 30 companies cleared to rate films online, among them VieON, FPT, iQIYI International Singapore, Apple, Viettel, Netflix, Yeah1, MobiFone and WarnerMedia Direct Asia Pacific. Citing VnExpress, it said Vietnam has nearly 30 domestic and foreign OTT and video-on-demand services, 20 of them licensed, and that micro-dramas draw viewers with short running times, fast plots and constant cliffhangers suited to watching on a phone.
China is the backdrop. Officials there said on 17 September that about 430,000 short dramas were released in the first eight months of 2026, 13 times the total for 2025, and that more than 90% involved AI. Around 68,000 were ordered off platforms for harmful, vulgar, child-unsuitable or infringing content, again mostly AI-related. China has more than 800 million short-drama viewers, and the market passed 100 billion yuan in 2025.
The report explains why AI changes the scale: work that once needed actors, sets, camera crews, lighting and post-production can be automated or shortened, so small teams can produce large volumes cheaply. That speed brings questions about quality, copyright, the use of people's images and voices, and who is responsible for what reaches viewers.
The dispatch does not single out AI productions; it covers online film distribution as a whole, but it names short films explicitly. The report reads it as a signal that when one person or a small team can turn out dozens of episodes, regulators will focus less on how a work was made than on who releases it, how it is rated and who answers for it.
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