As a documentary and chronicle, “The Legend of Truong Son” is a story about the historical trail told by living witnesses. The film is being broadcasted on the HCM City Television (HTV) as of April.

The historical Truong Son trail.

The Deputy General Director of HTV, Nguyen Quy Hoa, said that “This chronicle is the view of the current generation about the previous one, about a spiritual legend of Vietnam. So it is difficult to make the film real and practical.”

According to Hoa, the realness of the movie is how to help the young to understand the value of a period of hardship and of war, when people unyieldingly struggled and built this historical road.

The realness is also sixteen years of work where around 20,000 people sacrificed and each meter of this road suffered five bombs on average during the war.

“We don’t want to reminisce about the war because it is something too big to our limited ability. The things we want to tell in ‘The Legend of Truong Son’ are stories told by living witnesses. Real stories told by real people will partly bring truthful and moving feeling to the audience,” said Director To Hong Hai.

Hai said he was moved to see characters in the film. Many people are very old now. Their voices get trembling but they enthusiastically told their stories.

With 60 episodes, “The Legend of Truong Son” movie project was kicked off in mid-2008. The first scenes were shot in September 2008.

Following geographical landmarks, the movie starts with Khe Ho in Vinh Linh District, in the central province of Quang Tri and goes through many other places, such as Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Hue city, the Central Highlands, and parts of Laos.

Each ten minute episode is a story told by one historical witness. The last three episodes will describe the changes of this road today.

“The Legend of Truong Son” is part of several programs to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the Ho Chi Minh trail. The movie is being broadcasted at 9:10pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday every week on HTV7 channel, as of April 7.

PV