Robert Downey Jr., Sandra Oh, Hoa Xuande, and Fred Nguyen Khan in The Sympathizer (2024) | IMDb
Robert Downey Jr., Sandra Oh, Hoa Xuande, and Fred Nguyen Khan in The Sympathizer (2024) | IMDb
HBO simply dropped the trailer for the upcoming restricted collection The Sympathizer, a story of espionage that follows an nameless narrator: a North Vietnamese mole within the South Vietnamese military (Hoa Xuande). Robert Downey Jr. — both donning intricate disguises or taking part in a number of characters — wears many faces, hair items, and various outfits within the trailer. He informs our protagonist on the onset, “The Vietnam Warfare. It’s over. Your job, it’s simply begun.”
Because the Seventies wash over our eyes — from the flashy wardrobes to the cruising automobiles 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 intelligent spy making an attempt to mix in regardless of his considerably outcast standing. As numerous adversaries and allies load up their weapons and ship nail-biting dialogue, discussing the probability of a “spy” of their ranks, acquainted faces work their method into the trailer, together with the beloved Gray’s Anatomy alumnus Sandra Oh.
Park Chan-wook of Oldboy and Choice to Go away recognition directs the primary three episodes of this seven-episode miniseries, together with administrators Fernando Meirelles and Marc Munden.
The trailer jumps round a bit — that includes Downey in numerous get-ups and close-ups of our fear-stricken protagonist — constructing anticipation for a twisty-turny spy collection. If it’s something just like the novel, the collection may even traverse genres, together with darkish comedy, metafiction, historic fiction, and political thriller, so what do we all know concerning the supply materials?
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 compelled to flee to america along with his Basic towards the top of the Vietnam Warfare. Whereas residing inside a neighborhood of South Vietnamese refugees, he spies on them. He stories his discoveries again to the Viet Cong, and, over time, runs into slightly inner turmoil and cognitive dissonance relating to his authentic loyalties and his new life.
Whereas within the US, the Captain recounts working as an advisor on a movie just like Apocalypse Now, earlier than he finally returned to Vietnam as a part of a guerrilla raid towards communists.
The e-book begins with the Fall of Saigon and displays on the Americanization of the Vietnam Warfare in worldwide literature, which is a central theme within the novel (and destined to be one within the present as nicely). We all know how typically historical past is rewritten in lower than correct or not absolutely encompassing lights…
The protagonist is a sophisticated mixture of contradictions and dualities, which is destined to make this present a character-driven saga regardless of its thrilling narrative core. He was raised in Vietnam, however he attended faculty within the US, which vastly influences his perspective. He’s additionally a North Vietnamese mole but a good friend to South Vietnamese army officers. And don’t forge: he’s additionally a US CIA Agent…
The HBO restricted collection is scheduled to premiere on April 14, 2024 on Max.