Da 5 Bloods Almost Starred Samuel L Jackson & Denzel Washington

Though Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods is a certified hit, the tale of friendship during and after the Vietnam war almost included a very different cast.

Netflix’s Da 5 Bloods could have had some big stars in the movie, including Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington. Spike Lee’s latest film has been receiving some glowing reviews as of late, despite having been made on a relatively small budget, considering its amount of stunts and effects.

The film tells the story of four Vietnam vets who return to the small southeast Asian nation for the first time since the war ended. Known as the Bloods, the friends (Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, and Isiah Whitlock Jr.) are careful to tell outsiders that they have returned to Vietnam in order to find and bring the remains of the fifth Blood – Stormin’ Norman (Chadwick Boseman), back to the United States. While this is partly true, the Bloods also have a second function in Vietnam: to recover a substantial number of gold bars that they discovered and hid decades earlier during wartime. But of course, everything doesn’t go as planned. The film’s cast is a strong one, though Da 5 Bloods could have arguably benefited from younger look-alike cast members in the flashback sequences, as the lack of substantial difference between present-day Bloods and Vietnam-era Bloods can be distracting at times.

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