Robert Downey Jr., Sandra Oh, Hoa Xuande, and Fred Nguyen Khan in The Sympathizer (2024) | IMDb
HBO just dropped the trailer for the upcoming limited series The Sympathizer, a tale of espionage that follows an anonymous narrator: a North Vietnamese mole within the South Vietnamese army (Hoa Xuande). Robert Downey Jr. — either donning intricate disguises or playing multiple characters — wears many faces, hair pieces, and diverse outfits within the trailer. He informs our protagonist on the onset, “The Vietnam War. It’s over. Your job, it’s just begun.”
As the Seventies wash over our eyes — from the flashy wardrobes to the cruising cars and the bopping beat — so begins the story of “The Captain,” whose character is each an immigrant within the US and a mole. He’s a clever spy attempting to mix in despite his somewhat outcast status. As various adversaries and allies load up their guns and deliver nail-biting dialogue, discussing the likelihood of a “spy” of their ranks, familiar faces work their way into the trailer, including the beloved Grey’s Anatomy alumnus Sandra Oh.
Park Chan-wook of Oldboy and Decision to Leave recognition directs the primary three episodes of this seven-episode miniseries, together with directors Fernando Meirelles and Marc Munden.
The trailer jumps around a bit — featuring Downey in various get-ups and close-ups of our fear-stricken protagonist — constructing anticipation for a twisty-turny spy series. If it’s anything just like the novel, the series can even traverse genres, including dark comedy, metafiction, historical fiction, and political thriller, so what can we know in regards to the source material?
Spoiler Warning for ‘The Sympathizer’ novel
The 2015 novel, which earned creator Viet Thanh Nguyen the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, follows The Captain, who’s forced to flee to the United States along with his General toward the tip of the Vietnam War. While living inside a community of South Vietnamese refugees, he spies on them. He reports his discoveries back to the Viet Cong, and, over time, runs into a bit internal turmoil and cognitive dissonance regarding his original loyalties and his recent life.
While within the US, the Captain recounts working as an advisor on a movie much like Apocalypse Now, before he ultimately returned to Vietnam as a part of a guerrilla raid against communists.
The book begins with the Fall of Saigon and reflects on the Americanization of the Vietnam War in international literature, which is a central theme within the novel (and destined to be one within the show as well). We understand how often history is rewritten in lower than accurate or not fully encompassing lights…
The protagonist is an advanced mixture of contradictions and dualities, which is destined to make this show a character-driven saga despite its thrilling narrative core. He was raised in Vietnam, but he attended college within the US, which greatly influences his perspective. He’s also a North Vietnamese mole yet a friend to South Vietnamese military officials. And don’t forge: he’s also a US CIA Agent…
The HBO limited series is scheduled to premiere on April 14, 2024 on Max.
