The Cu Chi Tunnels

In the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese dug the Cu Chi Tunnels near Saigon, a tunnel network that was laid out one metre deep. It had a length of 250 kilometres, and was used as a weapon in the battle for the land. The North Vietnamese fought, ate, slept, even married underground.
For the first time in the American news coverage of this war, this documentary sheds light on another side of it. Here, the Vietcong is not faceless 'Charlie', as they were called by the American troops, but individuals fighting to retain their communistically governed country.
Mickey Grant interviews forty resistance fighters who tell about the sly and horrible Vietcong practices. For instance, the use of a mat of leaves to make an American G.I. fall into the tunnel with pointed sticks on end in it. Ingenious but cruel methods were used to kill the enemy or, better still, mutilate him, because the wounded soldiers were not quickly replaced in this war and in the meantime they used up the supplies. The ranks in the Vietcong resistance were determined by the number of killings one had to his name. All available means were used to drive away the enemy. In front of Grant's camera, the former Vietcong members reveal the numerous variations in the battle against the invading Americans. For many North Vietnamese, the war was a matter of killing or being killed. The tunnels were a resort for them, as they had become a killing machine for their enemy.
Mickey Grant films the recollections of the interviewed people on location and is not afraid to stage the past. The historical reliability is strengthened by editing archive material between those shots, which were taken last year. The archive images were never shown outside Vietnam.