His father was Trần Văn Vỵ (1902–1975), an automotive mechanic and functionary in the French protectorate government who was personally supportive of the revolutionary Việt Minh.

In 1949, his elder brother Vĩnh was killed by French fire in the course of a sweep operation in Hải Hậu, a rural district in Nam Định province where the family had taken refuge.

After high school, Thủy enrolled in a museum course in anthropology organized by the Ministry of Culture, and in 1960 went out to the mountains in the extreme northwest of Vietnam to do ethnographic studies of small groups of minority peoples such as the Tổng lượng and Khu Sung.

[8] His training was supposed to consist of a two-year curriculum concluding in 1967 but, after only one year, he and number of fellow students were recruited to go south as combat journalists and photographers.

[9] Thủy then worked as a war journalist in Military District V (a region around Quảng Đà) from 1966 to 1969, filming scenes of combat while suffering from extreme privation and danger.

"[11] In 1972, Thủy went to the USSR to study directing at the Moscow Film College under Roman Karmen (1906–1978), a renowned Soviet documentary filmmaker.