Vietnam
Blood Road
September 2, 2017
Rebecca Rusch’s ‘Blood Road’ (2017) is an educational, emotional, and spiritual experience that is profoundly powerful; the film will stay in your heart long after you leave the theatre. (It has mine.) It’s playing in Ketchum at the Magic Lantern, coinciding with Rebecca’s Private Idaho mountain bike ride this weekend in the valley. Bring you kids, your students…your daughters. Here’s more about the film:
‘Blood Road follows the journey of ultra-endurance mountain bike athlete Rebecca Rusch and her Vietnamese riding partner, Huyen Nguyen, as they pedal 1,200 miles along the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail through the dense jungles of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Their goal: to reach the site where Rebecca’s father, a U.S. Air Force pilot, was shot down in Laos more than 40 years earlier. During this poignant voyage of self discovery, the women push their bodies to the limit, while learning more about the historic ‘Blood Road’ and how the Vietnam War shaped their lives in different ways.’
Ketchum, Idaho’s Rebecca Rusch film coincides this weekend with her ‘Private Idaho’ mountain bike ride in Sun Valley. Here’s a link:
http://www.rebeccasprivateidaho.com
In 2013, I interviewed Rebecca about your then first ‘Private Idaho’ ride.
Film review by the LATimes:
June, 2017:
“Produced by Red Bull Media House, “Blood Road” goes far beyond the extreme sports film one might expect. Instead, the documentary is a triumph, more about emotional states than grueling physical challenges. It explores the budding friendship between two women whose fathers fought on opposing sides of the Vietnam War and the aftermath that still haunts the region.
Decades after her father’s plane was shot down, endurance mountain biker Rebecca Rusch journeys to visit his jungle crash site. Accompanied by accomplished Vietnamese cyclist Huyen Nguyen, Rusch bikes 1,200 miles of the Ho Chi Minh trail. The women bond as they travel through caves and over rickety bridges, passing bomb craters and discovering commonalities in their lives. The film examines not only the trail across Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia but also the scars left on the land and people of Southeast Asia.
Director Nicholas Schrunk deserves credit for pedaling through the jungle with the two world-class athletes, yet remains entirely unseen and unmentioned. Instead, he’s made an artful documentary that focuses entirely on Rusch, Nguyen and their mission. Well-crafted graphics explain the history and the terrain, but “Blood Road” never feels didactic. The film is a moving experience for both its subjects and the audience.”