Blood Road is a 2017 documentary film directed by Nicholas Schrunk and produced by Red Bull. It stars endurance mountain biker Rebecca Rusch, Vietnamese cyclist Huyen Nguyen and cartographer Don Duvall. The film chronicles the journey of Rusch traversing over on bicycle along the Ho Chi Minh trail to the site where her father, a US Air Force F-4 fighter pilot, was shot down in Laos 40 years earlier. It won numerous best of festival awards and a News & Documentary Emmy Award in 2018.
Production
The film was produced over two years, starting with an initial scout trip to Laos in December, 2014 with principal photography happening over 28 days in February/March 2015. The production team of six members, four of which were ex-professional athletes themselves, were limited to traversing on Honda CRF 250cc dual-sport motorcycles. Two crew members were injured in motorcycle accidents from the jungle terrain, one suffering a shoulder injury and another, a ruptured achilles tendon. The core production team collectively rode over 24,000 miles on motorcycle over the course of production. According to Andrew Fish of American Cinematographer. "The camera team used a unique combination of RED digital cinema cameras and Cookeanamorphic lenses to capture the film. Subsequent modifications were made to other smaller format action cameras such as GoPros to modify the lenses to fit the anamorphic profile.". They also extensively used the Freefly Systems MoVI gimbal which they affixed to motorcycles, drones, rickshaws and trucks. The film was finished in 4K with Dolby enlisted to audio-mix the film using Dolby Atmos technology. The on-screen graphics were of note for their creation from 8mm US Air Force footage, GPS points and OpenStreetMap data. The award winning elements were directed by
Release
The film premiered at the Sun Valley Film Festival in January 2017 where it received the audience choice award. It was released nationally with a US tour March 15th, 2017. It has since been translated into several different languages, including Vietnamese.
Reception
Blood Road was released to generally positive to mixed reviews holding a 67% on Rotten Tomatoes 4.3/5 on Amazon, and a 6.7/10 on IMDb based on 307 reviews. Kimber Myers of The Los Angeles Times had a positive review calling it a "moving experience for both its subjects and the audience". Bayo Olukotun of The Huffington Post described the filmmaking as "purposeful storytelling that transcends the action sports subset". However, John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter while praising the on-screen graphics criticized the storytelling noting that "American's emotional closure matters more than the lasting damage done in the countries she has gone to visit".
The filmmakers partnered with MAG, an organization that assists people affected by landmines and unexploded ordnance, to donate proceeds from the film to unexploded ordinance removal efforts. Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world with over two million tons of ordnance dropped over 580,000 bombing missions during the Vietnam war which was featured in the film's story. The film's lead, Rebecca Rusch continues to travel to Laos to promote the clean-up and raise money and awareness for the cause.
