The US has been burnt in anger by the movement “Black Lives Matter.” That is the reason why I recommend a movie about black people and what they have been suffering from the Vietnam War’s viewpoint. That movie is Da 5 Bloods, directed by Spike Lee.
The bloods of the title are Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr) and Eddie (Norm Lewis), four ageing Vietnam veterans who have returned to south-east Asia on what appears to be a luxury vacation trip down memory lane. All four are haunted by the memory of their squad leader Norman (Chadwick Boseman), who died in action before their eyes and whose memory they have romanticised.
In my viewpoint, Da 5 Bloods has shown up as a keeping up movie that Spike Lee intends to match the uproar in the world. Released in June, when the racial justice movement was put on its climax, Da 5 Bloods is a gun loaded with multipurpose bullets. This gun shoots a lot of bullets into the emotional pain and wounds about race satirely, the crudeness of the American empire, the unhealed wound of the Vietnam war that left for the younger generation, and how African-American sacrifices on the field of battle. Many people said that the core value of Da 5 Bloods is to emphasize the life of Black people. However, as a Vietnamese who watches a Hollywood movie about my country’s war, I suggest another implication of this movie is to give the audience a message: In any war, which is righteous or unrighteous, the people who suffer all the consequences and the most hurtful pain are ordinary people.
Lee creates flashback combat sequences for the five men, but he doesn’t rejuvenate the four alive men as he does for Norman. They appear in the past the way they are now, as sweaty, out-of-condition and very scared old guys in the jungle, surreally led by the impossibly handsome young Norman who has grown not old as those that are left grew old. He was and is their leader; Lee shows us that he now looks like their son.
These four men came back to Vietnam not to find the body of their leader Norman, but also to find the coffer of gold that they found in a plane in the past. They all hided on the jungle where happening the battlefield. After finding out where the coffer is, they fight each other because of the gold. During the fight, one of them steps on a bomb and gets killed. From that, they learn about the value of friendship and family, which is much more important than money and the gold that they found in the past. Another lesson about friendship is that they all cry when they find the body of Norman – their leader, friend and teammate. These four men make their promise with Norman come true.
Spike Lee was successful in providing the racial discrimination towards Black people in history when the American government made them join the war to get them killed instead of the white one. In addition, Da 5 Bloods also shows another evidence of racism during the Vietnam war by letting the audience know about the American government’s motivation to let Black people join the Vietnam war. Putting Black people in the war means that they would not be allowed to protest when Martin L. King was assassinated. Their purposes were achieved when King was killed, and so did other Black individuals.
The thing I don’t appreciate about Da 5 Bloods is how they paint Vietnamese people. Spike Lee failed in it. He still thinks about Vietnamses as the victims of the war and they still bring the hatred feelings about the American soldiers who killed their family to colonize the country. In fact, we, as Vietnamese, already forgive them about their actions, both Frenches and Americans.
In the end, Da 5 Bloods is a movie for anyone who wants to understand about the racial injustice towards Black people, but not for who wants to understand the Vietnam war.