FULLSCREEN is a series of videos to be viewed at the highest res your rig can handle.
The beginning of Patrik Wallner‘s The Killing Season lets five skaters lament the harsh outcome of a recent motorcycle trip down the length of Vietnam. As their story progresses, the visuals get brighter. By the time they tell the whole story, skater Joey Pepper is caught saying, “I wish we could’ve hung out there longer.”
The 23 minute doc for Skateboarder Magazine features parts by Jerry Hsu, Keegan Sauder, Joey Pepper, Javier Mendizibal and Michael “Michi” Mackrodt. None knew what they were getting into by following third-world-trotting skate taper Patrik Wallner through Vietnam, but by the time they crashed their first motorbike, they had too much good footage to quit.
The “killing season” refers to the hazy and very dangerous celebration period surrounding Vietnamese New Year, or Tết. During Tết, drunken party people throw caution to the wind on the A1 highway. As the longest main road in Vietnam, the A1 is not only the most direct route from North Vietnamese Hanoi to South Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh City, but it’s pretty much the only way.
Naturally, this was the best time for five foreign skaters to learn to ride busted Soviet motorcycles in freezing rain and wind, stop for anything resembling a skate spot between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh and record the whole thing in HD. Packed with anecdotes, truly gnarly skate sites, a homemade skateboard and the film mastery of Visualtraveling director Patrik Wallner, The Killing Season proves that a real adventure can’t come without a little amateurism and uncertainty.
Jerry Hsu almost died though. Let him tell you about it.
@BeekeepersInc