Bình minh đỏ
Bình minh đỏ is a Vietnamese war drama inspired by the true stories and wartime experiences of the first women’s transport platoon operating on the Trường Sơn route during the Vietnam War.
Produced in 2021 by the Vietnam Cinematography Association Film Studio, the film was commissioned by the State, with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism as the investor, the Vietnam Cinema Department responsible for project management, and the Vietnam Cinematography Association Film Studio as the production unit. The film was directed by People’s Artist Nguyễn Thanh Vân and Trần Chí Thành, from a screenplay by Nguyễn Thị Minh Nguyệt.
A Story of the Women on the Trường Sơn Route
Set after the Tết Mậu Thân Offensive in 1968, the film follows four young women — Châu, Hân, Sa, and Thương — who are selected and trained to become transport drivers on the Trường Sơn route.
Their work involves transporting supplies and essential goods from the rear to the front, while also carrying wounded soldiers and the remains of those who have fallen back toward the rear. The road becomes a constant confrontation with bombs, difficult terrain, exhaustion, and the possibility of death.
Rather than focusing only on large-scale battles, Bình minh đỏ also explores the everyday lives of the young women behind the historical events. Their friendship, youth, fear, affection and determination gradually develop alongside their experience of the war.
This contrast between ordinary moments and the surrounding violence forms an important part of the film’s visual and emotional language.
Recreating the Trường Sơn Battlefield
The production was carried out during a difficult period in 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic affected film production across Vietnam. The film was shot in locations across central Vietnam, recreating the landscape and atmosphere associated with the Trường Sơn route.
For a historical war film, recreating this environment requires more than visual reconstruction. The surrounding landscape, vehicles, movement, explosions, gunfire, voices and environmental sounds all contribute to the audience’s understanding of the physical space.
Sound therefore plays an important role in establishing the relationship between the characters and the battlefield around them.
Sound and the Battlefield
The film’s sound was credited to Hoàng Thu Thủy and Nguyễn Đình Cảnh, who received the Outstanding Sound award at the 2021 Golden Kite Awards.
In an interview about the film’s sound production, Hoàng Thu Thủy explained that the sound team worked closely with the director to establish the logic of the battlefield environment — including the perceived distance, intensity and scale of sounds in relation to what is shown on screen.
The process involved creating and selecting different sound materials, then determining which elements were appropriate for each image and scene. Some sounds were deliberately removed when they duplicated information already communicated visually or did not fit the intended dramatic perspective.
This approach reflects an important principle in film sound: realism does not necessarily mean filling every moment with sound. The placement, distance, intensity and absence of sound can all shape how an audience experiences a space.
Recognition
Bình minh đỏ received the Jury Prize for Feature Film at the 22nd Vietnam Film Festival in 2021. The award recognized the film alongside Ròm and Gái già lắm chiêu V.
At the 2021 Golden Kite Awards, the film received the Silver Kite for Feature Film and several individual awards:
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Best Director — Nguyễn Thanh Vân & Trần Chí Thành
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Best Art Direction — Nguyễn Nguyên Vũ
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Best Music — Đặng Hữu Phúc
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Outstanding Sound — Hoàng Thu Thủy & Nguyễn Đình Cảnh
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Best Supporting Actress — Phạm Bảo Hân
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Promising Young Actor — Phạm Quỳnh Anh
The film was later included in several national film programmes dedicated to Vietnamese revolutionary and wartime cinema, including screenings organized by the Vietnam Film Institute and the Vietnam Cinema Department.
A Contemporary Record of Wartime Cinema
Bình minh đỏ occupies a particular place within contemporary Vietnamese cinema: a State-commissioned feature film using the language of cinema to revisit the experiences of a generation of young women who served on the Trường Sơn route.
Its story is built not only around historical events, but also around the small human experiences within them — friendship, fear, loss, youth and the determination to continue.
Through the combination of image, performance, music and sound, the film reconstructs a period of Vietnamese history from the perspective of the people who lived and fought within it.
