Director Spike Lee’s newest film, Chi-Raq is a satirical musical that opens in cinemas December 2. The film is centered on gang violence in the Englewood neighbourhood of Chicago’s south side, as gang-related deaths increase to rival the death tolls of soldiers fighting in Iraq. It is based loosely on the classic Greek comedy, Lysistrata, in which women withheld sex from their husbands as punishment for fighting the Peloponnesian war.
Chi-Raq has been called Lee’s “ballsiest” production by Rolling Stone, and an “urgent, angry – and very sexy – midlife masterpiece” by The Guardian. The cast is made up of stars like Nick Cannon, Wesley Snipes, Teyonah Parris, Jennifer Hudson, Angela Bassett, John Cusack, and Samuel L. Jackson.