Director Spike Lee plans on dropping viewers into the shit when his new war drama, Da 5 Bloods, premieres next month on Netflix.
Da 5 Bloods follows a group of four black veterans (and one of their sons) who return to Vietnam years after the war’s end. Their mission: To recover the remains of their squad leader and close friend Norman (played by Chadwick Boseman) and to dig up a crate of gold that they buried downrange decades earlier.
In a way, Da 5 Bloods feels a bit like the Gulf War heist flick, Three Kings, except that it’s set in the jungles of Vietnam and shifts between the present and the late 1960s — with plenty of action, and likely a fair amount of dark humor, playing out in both timelines.
But Da 5 Bloods will also examine the social and political strife of the 1960s, as scenes of civil rights marches and anti-war protests appear in brief snippets throughout the trailer.
Indeed, the trailer begins with “Hanoi Hannah” (Van Veronica Ngo) talking over the radio as Time Has Come Today by The Chambers Brothers plays in the background:
“Black GI, is it fair to serve more than the white Americans that send you here. Nothing is more confused than to be ordered into a war to die, without the faintest idea of what’s going on. I dedicate this next record to the soul brothers of the first infantry division. Be safe.”
In terms of structure, Da 5 Bloods seems to be told through flashbacks as the characters grapple with the enduring legacy of that war and the indelible marks it left on them.
In addition to Boseman, the Da 5 Bloods stars Delroy Lindo, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and Clarke Peters. The movie premieres on Netflix on June 12.