The Man Behind Saigon’s Viral, Always Sold-Out Circus

It was supposed to be a limited 10-day show for Tet. But nearly half a year later, Vùng Đất Kỳ Bí—or The Enchanted Land—is still selling out.

Try snagging a ticket today and you’ll be racing against hundreds of fans. Especially on TikTok, where clips of fire, fountains, and six-meter-tall giants have turned the show into a viral sensation. But at the heart of the spectacle is something more profound, a cinematic narrative, crafted not only for applause, but also emotion.

Sitting quietly behind the control board is the man responsible for it all, Nguyen Quoc Cong. No spotlight or grand entrances, just hundreds of cues and one visionary mission: to change what Vietnamese circus can be.

More Than Just a Circus

Quoc Cong’s journey to this moment didn’t begin in a studio or school. It started in a rural village, where his father brought cải lương (Vietnamese opera) troupes to perform on makeshift bamboo stages. As a child, he watched performers “fly” across the stage and never forgot it.

By his teens, he was already performing professionally. Over the next two decades, he moved from circus artist to troupe leader to director. But even as he climbed the ranks, he noticed something missing.

The Vietnamese circus has a history of around 100 years. Initially focused on animals and then human acts, the genre evolved as part of wartime cultural troupes. One legendary performer, NSND Tam Chinh, known as the “refreshment seller,” became famous in northern battlefields during the 1960s and 1970s.

As part of the next generation, Cong sought inspiration beyond textbooks, devouring foreign DVDs of circus productions. What he noticed was troubling: performances often felt like disjointed sequences. No arc, no flow. Sometimes, “dessert” came before the “appetizer.”

In Vietnam, it wasn’t uncommon to see the same dog trick, counting from 1 to 10, repeated unchanged for 20 years. “Why do we keep making people watch the same thing over and over?” he asked himself. “If we never evolve, audiences will leave.”

A Circus Director Who Works Like an Engineer

Though Cong didn’t graduate from directing school until he was nearly 40, he approaches every production like an engineer—diagramming lighting setups, sketching costume mechanics, and building custom props. From learning foreign stage technologies to crafting custom props like glowing swords, every detail is planned meticulously.

The Enchanted Land wasn’t a gamble; it was the result of years of trial, error, and reflection—documented in the countless notebooks beside his bed. The use of a water stage, now a crowd favorite, was something Cong first tested in 2022. That early show, produced in just 10 days, turned out to be the highest-grossing performance of the year.

What surprised him most, however, was the Gen Z response. “Some came four, five times,” he said, laughing. “One even joked on TikTok, ‘Okay, this is the last time. My phone’s full of clips already.’ Their enthusiasm, he noted, became its own marketing team.

Redefining What It Means to Lead in the Arts

Cong isn’t just breaking boundaries between circus and theater—he’s challenging how creative leadership works.

Unlike stage actors, circus performers aren’t traditionally trained to express complex emotions. As a director, Cong must coach them into character psychology. Getting into the right emotional state is challenging; maintaining it across multiple performances is even more so. Performers often “drop the role” mid-show.

Then there’s team management. Circus troupes are made up of highly individualistic artists. “You have to show them you’re serious, that you follow through,” Cong says. “A director must get everyone to wrestle with the creative problem, not just follow orders.”

He encourages his team to show up with an open mind,” ready to explore new ideas. “If they see me, they know we’re doing something new,” he adds. That culture of constant experimentation is what allowed The Enchanted Land to come to life.

Directing Is a Balancing Act

Cong jokes that being a director is like being a stagehand with a master’s degree. He micromanages every detail, from lighting and sound to prop mechanics. If the stage isn’t bright enough, he’ll redraw the lighting schematic. When walkie-talkies failed, he rigged a loudspeaker backstage so his cues could be heard clearly.

Tho—the six-meter giant began as just an idea: “We need a giant.” Without Cong’s persistence, Tho might’ve ended up a three-meter puppet for a street show. But after dozens of design tweaks and operational experiments, Tho could wave, cry, and dance—like something straight out of a fairy tale.

After 20 performances, the team began to operate like clockwork. As a result, every scene is like a film where every frame looks perfectly stunning.

What’s Next?

When asked whether The Enchanted Land could run for a decade like other circus classics, Cong gives a modest smile. “I haven’t dared to dream that far.” Still, interest is growing. Travel companies and airlines have approached him about featuring the show as part of Vietnam’s cultural itinerary.

One veteran director even told him, “You’ve done something many of us dreamed of but never managed to pull off.”

“Sometimes,” Cong reflects, “what we create ends up being much bigger than we ever imagined.”