Tunnels: Sun in the Dark is a character-driven war movie that grips with its narrative. Bùi Thạc Chuyên shows what happens when people thrown into war give everything to survive—an excellent film.

In 1967, as the Vietnam War raged, a Vietnamese revolutionary guerrilla team became the U.S. military’s top target – charged with safeguarding a secret group of intelligence agents while important messages are sent out. No matter the cost.

Based on real events of those who operated within the Cu Chi tunnels, Bùi Thạc Chuyên has crafted an emotional, claustrophobic film with Tunnels: Sun in the Dark. At practically every second of this film, we are trapped in some form, whether that be in the tunnels as our characters move around, when they are eventually found and flooded or even out in the open. You feel closed in because they all have to work so hard to survive in the trenches. They are continually enclosed around something with seemingly no respite.

It’s a fantastically immersive film with claustrophobia executed to perfection. You cannot fault the technical work that has gone into Tunnels. Shot in a narrower aspect ratio, we rarely leave the group even as their numbers begin to dwindle. The pacing also works tremendously well. In the moments where events grind to a halt, it’s purposeful. This is what those in the tunnels and the U.S. Army experience. Intense moments are balanced with continual slow moments. These slower moments let us feel even more for the cast.

The entire cast is sublime and faultless in their performances. Keeping the audience engaged with such a large cast of separate subplots is difficult, but Tunnels pulls it off. The group has its own betrayals and pain, and you remember them as Bay Theo tries to keep the group together, even if it means pushing those close to him away. The build-up in the first hour, as we begin to feel for them as their own stories play out, becomes a horrendous gut punch when the Americans suddenly begin their ground assault, with our group having a mixture of horrific and heart-wrenching ends.

While this is a film about the lives of the guerrilla Viet Cong groups during the Vietnam War, you never feel that any of those involved are purposeful participants. They are not really soldiers; they are trained in all forms of combat, but in truth they are victims of the war. Forced to leave their continually bombed homes, they begin to live in the multi-levelled tunnels to survive.

Bùi Thạc Chuyên could easily have made the U.S. army horrible villains while our small band of guerrillas try to fulfil their mission. Instead, they are merely shown as the opposing side in all of this. This restrained approach allows the film to excel. That is not to say there isn’t action throughout. The film is full to the brim with short bursts of emotionally painful action. Even when we can tell what is going to happen to characters, even some American ones. We are still thrown into tense and unforgiving moments.

What absolutely hurts Tunnels is the need to have that sexual assault scene in there. Would there have been cases of sexual assault in those tunnels and during that time? Of course, but to show it multiple times is utterly needless. It was a case that should be highlighted without being graphically shown. It’s a misstep, but one that the film can move on from.

Tunnels: Sun in the Dark is most akin to the great The Eight Hundred. Sure, there is a hell of a lot of heroism, but the real story is how those left to survive and carry out the task given to them are just normal people, increasingly filled with determination and grief. It somehow retains its intimacy despite its sprawling story. It does so by avoiding the heavy-handed approach to war stories that almost all war films take. Tunnels can stand apart.

★★★★

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