Story

The story of Dark Paradise revolves around Ash, an African-American giant of a man, who fought in the Vietnam war and never left. He just continues to roam Vietnam almost like a ghost, living off the land, doing the work that the Vietnamese people don't want to do for free, in order to make amends and appease his conscience, which can never be appeased.

We begin with him entering a tiny, isolated village by the sea, forgotten by time and the world, it has not changed much after the war, except that many of its villagers have all been touched by Agent Orange. That very first night, an enormous splash awakes them all and as they come to the beach they see something enormous in the water. Some say the Americans are back again, that it is some kind of chemical, others say that it is an experiment, that it is God's gift, and some say that it came from the sky, an alien being! Children swim in it, delighting in its warmth. But then Ash notices a dead branch come alive over night and things begin to go wrong. A grieving widower digs up his dead wife and carries her into the ocean and she rises up, but it is not his wife. The villagers begin to accuse God and finally Ash - the American, the Magic Man who came back to finish what he started so long ago. It is as if the thing in the water makes the past, with all its nightmares and pain, flesh! Things intensify to terrifying proportions as Ash tries to find a way to deal with the past and make things right.

Crew

Director: Mauricio Chernovetzky
Writer: Alexander Iosjpe