Category: movies

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Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge

Hong Kong is perhaps the BEST major city for urban hikes.

But — what if you try to run them continuously?

Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge (Chinese: 香港四徑超級挑戰), or HK4TUC (Chinese: 四徑; lit. ‘Four Trails’), is an annual ultramarathon race in Hong Kong. (Begun 2012.)

Considered one of the most challenging mountain races worldwide, participants have to run through within 72 hours the famous quadruple hiking trails in Hong Kong known as “Four Trails”: MacLehose, Wilson, Hong Kong, and Lantau.

The ultramarathon spans a total distance of 298 kilometres with a cumulative elevation of 14,500 metres …

Four Trails (Chinese: 香港四徑大步走) is a 2023 Hong Kong documentary film directed by Robin Lee.

As I post it’s available to watch free on Tubi.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

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Ice Road: Vengeance – DUMB Movie 😀

I watched Ice Road: Vengeance (2025) because it follows an ice-road truck driver ( Liam Neeson ) who travels to the Nepal to scatter his brother’s ashes where he must fend off mercenaries.

Hiking related, I was hoping.

Rotten Tomatoes, 14% of 22 critics’ reviews are positive.

BUT the movie is hilariously bad and inaccurate in describing Nepal.

It was filmed in Victoria, Australia, with the town of Walhalla serving as a double for a Nepalese village.

The production also utilized real footage from Nepal for scenes shot on LED screens at the studios.

Arriving in Kathmandu, Mike hires Dhani, a skilled local Everest guide. They join a group of passengers aboard the “Kiwi Express”, a tour bus navigating the perilous “Road to the Sky,” a narrow, high-altitude mountain pass.

They are literally taking a BUS to Everest Base Camp.

Skip this movie.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

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2025 Film – The Long Walk

I saw The Long Walk in a theatre, thinking it might be hiking related.

BUT it’s simply a horror film where young people are killed for the entertainment of an audience.

The Long Walk is a 2025 American dystopian survival thriller film …

… based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Stephen King (under his pseudonym Richard Bachman).

Set in a dystopian 1970s, the film follows fifty boys (one from each state) in an annually televised competition, meant to inspire viewers.

Each boy must maintain a pace of 3 miles per hour.

Failure to do so after three warnings results in death. The boy who lasts the longest wins riches and the fulfillment of a wish of his choice. …

Cooper Hoffman as Raymond “Ray” Garraty.. An excellent role. He’s the son of actor  Philip Seymour Hoffman, and I can see similarities.

But the best performance is David Jonsson as Peter “Pete” McVries.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Of course it’s not believable that anyone walked 5 days continually, well over 300 miles. One in socks at the end.

Not recommended unless you like horror.

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documentary – 500 Days in the Wild

Dianne Whelan is the only person to complete The Great Trail (Trans Canada Trail), a network of greenways, trails, waterways, and roads that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic oceans.

It extends over 24,000 km (15,000 mi); it is now the longest recreational, multi-use trail network in the world

Hiking, biking, paddling, snowshoeing and skiing.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

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Canada’s Great Divide Trail – documentary

The Great Divide Trail in the Canadian Rockies … closely follows the Great Divide between Alberta and British Columbia …

… southern terminus is in Waterton Lakes National Park at the Canada–US border (where it connects with the Continental Divide Trail) and its northern terminus is at Kakwa Lake in Kakwa Provincial Park, north of Jasper National Park. …

In 2017, Kodak & Cinnamon hiked 1100km south to north.

Out There: The Great Divide Trail is FREE on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Getting permits is difficult.

Start on this page ➙ Great Divide Trail Association – Trip -Planning Resources

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2023 Banff Mountain Festival – Teaser

The 2023 Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival is in Banff, Alberta, from October 28 to November 5.

… 84 films from 13 countries.

Online film screenings during the Festival are also back, bringing on-demand films to your homes in Canada/USA from October 28 through November 5, plus some award-winning films online from Nov. 6-8.

Get your tickets for events in Banff or your Online Film Pass today 👉 https://www.banffcentre.ca/film-fest

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

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Island of the Blue Dolphins

I’d recently enjoyed reading the young-adult wilderness survival novel series written by American writer Gary Paulsen. It starts with The Hatchet (1986).

Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960) is some what similar.

… the story of a 12-year-old island girl named Karana, who is stranded alone for years on an island off the California coast.

It is based on the true story of Juana Maria, a Nicoleño Native American left alone for 18 years on San Nicolas Island during the 19th century. …

… the subject of much literary and pedagogical scholarship related to survival, feminism, the resilience of Indigenous peoples, and beyond. …

Both books won the Newbery Medal for distinguished contributions to American literature for children.

It was made into a film in 1960.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.