(The a number of casting of Downey, by the way in which, is arguably a visible riff on this historical past of the flicks treating Asians usually, and Vietnamese specifically, as interchangeable: Each side of imperialism, it conveys, is similar face in several make-up. However in a sequence that’s meant to foreground the Vietnamese in their very own story, the machine is showy and distracting as a result of … nicely, it’s an entire lot of Robert Downey Jrs.)
The Captain volunteers to unravel the issue, rounding up a gaggle of Vietnamese expats to fill the additional roles, together with his pal Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan), who proves to have a expertise for getting killed, repeatedly, in quite a lot of costumes and make-up.
However the Captain’s resolution introduces its personal issues. His refugee extras, who fled the communists, don’t wish to play Viet Cong onscreen. “Why can we make artwork,” the Captain pleads with them, “if to not discover the complete complexity of life?” His speech doesn’t persuade anybody, however a suggestion of an additional $10 in pay does.
Park, the director of the relentless and sanguinary “Oldboy,” is an apt match for this story, in a position to each render the fun of precise motion and satirize the absurdity of motion moviemaking. (Park and McKellar wrote the fourth episode, which is directed by Fernando Meirelles.) On set, the Captain meets a Korean American actor (performed by John Cho), whose résumé contains characters of a number of Asian ethnicities who’ve been overwhelmed to dying by Robert Mitchum, stabbed by Ernest Borgnine and shot by Frank Sinatra. An overbearing technique actor (David Duchovny) performs his function as a battle felony with disturbing constancy.
The episode builds to the movie-within-a-show’s climax, the rape of a village lady whom Nikos has named for the Captain’s mom. Although Nikos considers it a “tribute,” the Captain is appalled. (“Try to be thanking me!” Nikos complains.) It’s an excessive amount of for the Captain, whom Xuande performs as a person skilled at mastering his feelings and his have an effect on. He’s fired and breaks up the scene’s capturing, and whereas leaving the set, he’s injured in a pyrotechnic blast meant to simulate an airstrike towards the Vietnamese hamlet.
