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(The a number of casting of Downey, by the best way, is arguably a visible riff on this historical past of the flicks treating Asians typically, and Vietnamese specifically, as interchangeable: Every side of imperialism, it conveys, is similar face in numerous make-up. But in a collection 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 a complete lot of Robert Downey Jrs.)
The Captain volunteers to resolve the issue, rounding up a gaggle of Vietnamese expats to fill the additional roles, together with his good friend Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan), who proves to have a expertise for getting killed, repeatedly, in quite a lot of costumes and make-up.
But 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 total complexity of life?” His speech doesn’t persuade anybody, however a proposal of an additional $10 in pay does.
Park, the director of the relentless and sanguinary “Oldboy,” is an apt match for this story, capable of 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 crushed to demise by Robert Mitchum, stabbed by Ernest Borgnine and shot by Frank Sinatra. An overbearing methodology actor (David Duchovny) performs his position as a battle prison with disturbing constancy.
The episode builds to the movie-within-a-show’s climax, the rape of a village girl whom Nikos has named for the Captain’s mom. Though Nikos considers it a “tribute,” the Captain is appalled. (“You needs to be thanking me!” Nikos complains.) It’s an excessive amount of for the Captain, whom Xuande performs as a person professional at mastering his feelings and his have an effect on. He is fired and breaks up the scene’s taking pictures, and whereas leaving the set, he’s injured in a pyrotechnic blast meant to simulate an airstrike towards the Vietnamese hamlet.
