The South Korean auteur has crafted something authentic, immersive and bold.
Park Chan-wook. A24. HBO. Robert Downey Jr, fresh off an Oscars win. That’s surely enough to pique most viewers’ interests.
There are few series which arrive with quite as much behind-the-scenes pedigree as The Sympathizer, which partners all four of these individuals/entities, and is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
From the moment you switch on the first episode, you know you’re in safe hands – it may take you to unexpected places, but you know that, at the very least, it will be assured, innovative and compelling.
Thankfully, The Sympathizer reaches far beyond that.
It’s at once both intimate and profound, and comes together with the rhythms of a film, while never forgetting its TV structure. It really is quite something.
Starting in the mid 1970s, near the end of the Vietnam War, the series charts years in the life of a man known only as The Captain. He’s a man split between two worlds, in almost every sense.
He’s mixed-race and bilingual, having been born to an Vietnamese mother but his biological father having been French. He’s also a spy, appearing to work for a South Vietnamese general and their allies in the US, but secretly acting on the orders of the North Vietnamese army and sending information back to the communist Viet Kong.
The show picks up as he is forced to flee to the US with his general and a group of other North Vietnamese refugees, continuing to send information home while getting involved with academics, filmmakers, congressmen and other aspects of American society.
The first episode dumps a lot of information on you fast, so be aware that you’ll need to keep up. Beyond that, the pace slows somewhat, with The Captain going on what, at times, are almost episodic adventures through 1970s and ’80s America.
However, it’s notable that some slight pacing issues across the seven-part run really are the only problem facing The Sympathizer – in all other ways, it is a marvel of a series.
First off, it’s intensely stylish, in the way that fans of Park’s will expect. As a visual storyteller, there really are few who can capture life in all its forms, from the beautiful to the ridiculous to the repellent, like him, and it gives the show an extra filmic quality which makes it stand out, even from other HBO prestige series.
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However, the real reason to stick around is the storytelling. It’s a gripping narrative from start to finish, that not only manages to tell a clear character-based story, but which also examines issues of race, identity, representation, memory, culture and so much more.
It’s a rich and complex tale, one which refuses to give easy answers or take sides, but instead prods at the central questions of the era, many of which remain relevant and timely.
The relationship between the East and West comes into particularly sharp focus, not only as a legitimate and serious examination, but also as satire. As well as bringing the drama, the series is also, consistently, very, very funny.
There are so many aspects which will linger with you once all is said and done, perhaps one of the most crucial being the show’s fascination with memory, and how it interacts with that which is tangible, particularly food and drink.
It’s an impressive example of adaptation done right, taking what can be so richly described and evocative in a book and translating the sensation of reading it to the screen. Park and his co-showrunner Don McKellar have clearly identified that this is how the longer-form TV format can work at its most optimal, when compared with a film’s runtime.
With seven hours to work with, the team has made each smaller moment significant, memorable and lasting, even when, on a broader scale, the show manages to be so many things – a spy drama, a war epic, a political satire, a exploration of film history and more.
Turning to the cast, much has been made of Downey Jr’s multiple roles throughout the series, as he plays four different American characters, each of which take on an imposing, patriarchal role in The Captain’s life.
For years, perhaps the most prevalent criticism thrown Downey’s way was that his most famous role, Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was too similar to his own persona – that he was essentially sleepwalking through a role built almost entirely on his own charisma.
This criticism was always nonsense, but Downey seems to have gone out of his way in recent years to prove the naysayers wrong – first, with his role as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer, and now with these four roles, each of which share similarities at their core, but who are each big, heightened and distinctive characters.
They’re broad performances, and they have to be. For all of its serious and pointed exploration of difficult subject matter, much of this piece is absurdist. There are moments of shocking grotesquery, but also a whole lot of comedy, and one notable scene with Downey in the third episode is likely to live in your memory for a while.
Meanwhile, the rest of the supporting cast also put in strong turns, including Fred Nguyen Khan as Bon, Duy Nguyễn as Man and Sandra Oh as Sofia. While each are provided with lighter moments, for the most part these are more textured character studies, rather than the bravura, showy, almost symbollic nature of Downey’s characters.
The real find, though, is The Captain star Hoa Xuande, the titular Sympathizer, who is in almost every scene – and is the one on whose shoulders the whole series truly rests.
It’s a remarkable performance from start to finish, as Xuande sells the character’s conflicted nature and struggles with his own identities and desires, while also being a remarkably charismatic screen presence. Even beyond the character’s duality, it’s a double performance in and of itself – one, as a character actor, the other, as a leading man.
The series crescendoes into a riveting, thoughtful finale, which pulls all of the strands together and leaves you with just enough answers to satisfy – as well as a whole load of more questions to mull over.
The novel The Sympathizer is widely understood to have been written by Viet Thanh Nguyen as a response to America’s portrayal of and narrative surrounding the Vietnam War, and the series certainly reflects this.
It’s not just Apocalypse Now and Platoon that are dissected here, but the jingoistic, exploitative and unrepresentative nature of so many war films.
However, the truly exceptional attribute the show has is that while it excels in this, it is also a detailed, evocative and emotional character study, which really gets under the skin of its protagonist.
The biggest downside of the show is, as mentioned, the pacing. For the most part, it is well judged, but there are moments throughout the seven hours where you may wish it slowed down to examine something more thoroughly, or speed through some of the downtime.
However, when it has so much else going for it, these are minor quibbles to look past, in a series which is sure to linger in many a mind, and rise high on many lists of the best TV this year.
The Sympathizer will be released on Sky Atlantic and NOW in the UK in May. Sign up for Sky TV here.
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