bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

James Marsh

4/5 stars
The question of identity looms large over The Sympathizer, HBO’s new seven-part adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel.
Set in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, the story follows an unnamed protagonist, referred to only as “The Captain”, as he navigates a world of duplicity and deception, both at home and in the United States.
Celebrated Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden) serves as showrunner, together with Don McKellar (The Red Violin), and directs the first three episodes.


Australian actor Hoa Xuande (Cowboy Bebop) headlines a mostly Vietnamese-speaking cast, with the notable exception of newly crowned Academy Award winner Robert Downey Jnr, who plays a series of Caucasian characters, as well as serving as executive producer alongside his wife, Susan Downey.
The Captain (Hoa) struggles with conflicting identities throughout The Sympathizer. He is biracial, born to an impoverished Vietnamese mother and absent French father, which sets him apart from his countrymen and provides a constant source of torment and ridicule.
3 Body Problem: Netflix sci-fi adaptation is the latest event television
He is also a spy, embedded by the Viet Cong in the South Vietnamese army. In the days leading up to the fall of Saigon, he is serving as aide-de-camp to “The General” (Toan Le), chief of the secret police.
While nominally rooting out Northern agents operating in the city, he secretly sabotages these investigations to protect his comrades while relaying any usable data back to his superiors in Hanoi.
The end of the war offers no respite for the Captain. After securing safe passage to America for the General and his family, his efforts to evacuate his two best friends ends in disaster.

Man (Duy Nguyễn) vows to remain in the country and continue fighting for the communists, while Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan), a paratrooper for the South, loses his wife and newborn son to artillery fire as they attempt to board the plane.
Once in America, the Captain is ordered to continue his surveillance of the General, and file regular reports with Man using invisible ink. But many of the refugees, the Captain and General included, are soon seduced by the intoxicating capitalism of the West.
All this is relayed in flashback, both to the audience and, as it transpires, to the Captain’s interrogators.

At some point after his evacuation, the Captain returned to Vietnam and fell foul of his own communist handlers. Now captive in a reeducation camp, not as a prisoner but an “educatee”, he is forced to transcribe every detail of his experiences.
But time, it seems, has poisoned his perspective, and the Captain can’t help but write an even-handed account, expressing compassion and understanding for both sides of the campaign – much to his captors’ chagrin.
Therein lies the key to The Sympathizer’s success. The Captain is a wholly unreliable and untrustworthy narrator who repeatedly forgets, misremembers, and deliberately manipulates the facts to protect himself and those around him.

Simultaneously, he is being similarly used and exploited by those in his orbit, including the General, his daughter Lana (Vy Le), an opportunistic Major (Phanxine), a left-leaning journalist (Alan Trong), and the many duplicitous antagonists played by Downey.
Over the course of the show, Downey embodies CIA agent Claude, an effete college professor pushing an outdated perspective on “Oriental Studies”, a gung-ho congressman known as “Napalm Ned” and, perhaps most entertainingly of all, a self-aggrandising film director who hires the Captain to be his Vietnamese consultant on an Apocalypse Now-esque war movie.
One of the most bravura sequences of the entire show transpires at the climax of episode 3, when the Captain’s on-set role is negotiated in the back room of a debauched Los Angeles club by all four Downeys at once.

The Sympathizer wields incredible dramatic heft between moments of uproarious levity and dazzling, cinematic flair. Hong Kong audiences reared on thrillers that champion undercover agents and noble anti-heroes will delight in its densely layered narrative of confused identity and divided loyalties.
More than half of the spoken dialogue is Vietnamese, and the production has gone out of its way to cast local talent wherever possible.
The novelty of this approach is addressed repeatedly during the movie shoot sequences, not least when an extra playing a Vietnamese villager blurts out her lines in Cantonese, which goes completely unnoticed by the oblivious crew until the Captain is forced to step in.

Admittedly, there are moments in the later episodes where the dramatic urgency of the narrative starts to ebb ever so slightly, but for the most part The Sympathizer is a bold and hugely rewarding tale.
Park and fellow directors Fernando Meirelles and Marc Munden have crafted a richly detailed period piece that offers insightful commentary on the immigrant experience within a thrilling tale of espionage and spy-craft.
Anchored by a complex, star-making turn from Hoa Xuande as the eponymous spy, The Sympathizer is, as the Captain’s mother repeatedly reminds him, half of nothing, but double of everything.
The Sympathizer will start streaming on HBO Go on April 15.


Squid Game creator on season 2 and wanting to ask whether there’s hope for humans

Who is Bethenny Frankel’s new beau, Tom Villante? The Real Housewives star just made it official with the Princeton graduate, businessman and father at the Yellowstone season 5 premiere

Who are Dr Phil’s sons, Jay and Jordan McGraw? The talk show host spoke at a Trump rally, but said it wasn’t an endorsement of the president-elect – and he would have gladly spoken at a Harris rally

Meet Kelly Reilly’s husband Kyle Baugher: the Yellowstone star’s long-time love played lacrosse at Princeton, works in finance, and recently hung out on the show set in Montana with their dog

TV shows and streaming video

HBO drama review: The Sympathizer – Robert Downey Jnr in Park Chan-wook’s bold adaptation of Pulitzer Prize winner

Hoa Xuande (left) and Robert Downey Jr in a still from The Sympathizer. Photo: Hopper Stone/SMPSP

Hoa Xuande as The Captain in a still from the HBO series The Sympathizer. Photo: Hopper Stone/SMPSP

Robert Downey Jnr (left) and Hoa Xuande as The Captain in a still from The Sympathizer. Photo: Hopper Stone/SMPSP

Toan Le as The General in a still from The Sympathizer. Photo: Hopper Stone/SMPSP

Robert Downey Jnr in a still from The Sympathizer. Photo: Hopper Stone/SMPSP

From left: Hoa Xuande, Fred Nguyen Khan as Bon and Duy Nguyen as Man in a still from The Sympathizer. Photo: Hopper Stone/SMPSP

Hoa Xuande (left) and Robert Downey Jnr in a still from The Sympathizer. Photo: Hopper Stone/SMPSP

Netflix drama review: 3 Body Problem – Game of Thrones creators adapt Liu Cixin’s sci-fi masterpiece for your latest dose of event television

Jess Hong as Jin Cheng in a still from 3 Body Problem. Photo: Ed Miller/Netflix

Yu Guming (left) as Yang Weining and Zine Tseng as Young Ye Wenjie in a still from the Netflix series 3 Body Problem, the Game of Thrones creators’ adaptation of Liu Cixin’s sci-fi epic The Three Body Problem. Photo: Ed Miller/Netflix

Eiza González (left) as Auggie Salazar and Benedict Wong as Da Shi in a still from 3 Body Problem. Photo: Netflix

Jess Hong (left) as Jin Cheng and John Bradley as Jack Rooney in a still from 3 Body Problem. Photo: Ed Miller/Netflix

Jonathan Pryce as Mike Evans in a still from 3 Body Problem. Photo: Netflix

Rosalind Chao as Ye Wenjie in a still from 3 Body Problem. Photo: Netflix

Liam Cunningham as Wade in a still from 3 Body Problem. Photo: Ed Miller/Netflix

Netflix drama review – Avatar: The Last Airbender is a faithful adaptation of the original animated series, so fans can breathe a sigh of relief

Gordon Cormier as Aang in a still from Avatar: the Last Airbender. The eight-episode adventure on Netflix is a faithful adaptation of the original animated series. Photo: Netflix

Gordon Cormier as Aang in a still from Avatar: The Last Airbender. The eight-episode adventure on Netflix is a faithful adaptation of the original animated series. Photo: Netflix

Kiawentiio (left) as Katara and Ian Ousley as Sokka in a still from Avatar: the Last Airbender. Photo: Robert Falconer/Netflix

Ken Leung as Zhao in a still from Avatar: the Last Airbender. Photo: Robert Falconer/Netflix

Daniel Dae Kim as Ozai in a still from Avatar: the Last Airbender. Photo: Netflix

(From left) Kiawentiio as Katara, Gordon Cormier as Aang, and Ian Ousley as Sokka in a still from Avatar: the Last Airbender. Photo: Robert Falconer/Netflix

Netflix drama review: The Brothers Sun – Michelle Yeoh anchors triad gang family comedy

Michelle Yeoh as Mama Sun in a still from “The Brothers Sun”. Photo: Michael Desmond/ Netflix

Michelle Yeoh as Mama Sun in a still from Netflix series “The Brothers Sun”. She plays the mother to a naive would-be comedian and a streetwise enforcer for their father’s Taiwanese triad, whose worlds soon collide. Photo: Michael Desmond/Netflix

Sam Song Li (left) as Bruce Sun and Jenny Yang as Xing, who is devoted to protecting the Sun family, in a still from “The Brothers Sun”. Photo: Michael Desmond/Netflix

Justin Chien (centre) as Charles in a still from “The Brothers Sun”. Photo: Michael Desmond/Netflix

Highdee Kuan as Alexis Kong, an assistant district attorney, in a still from “The Brothers Sun”. Photo: Netflix

Kou Shih-hsun as Big Sun in a still from “The Brothers Sun”. Photo: Michael Desmond/Netflix

(From left) Joon Lee as TK, best friend of Bruce Sun, Sam Song Li as Bruce, Michelle Yeoh as Mama Sun, and Justin Chien as Charles Sun in a still from “The Brothers Sun”. Photo: Netflix

Netflix drama review: One Piece – live-action adaptation of Eiichiro Oda’s iconic manga series starts promisingly with an 8-episode first season

Iñaki Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy in a still from “One Piece”. Photo: Netflix

(From left) Mackenyu Arata as Roronoa Zoro, Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp, Iñaki Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy, and Taz Skylar as Sanji in a still from “One Piece”, the live-action Netflix adaptation of the world’s bestselling manga series, “One Piece”. Photo: Netflix

(From left) Emily Rudd as Nami, Iñaki Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy, and Mackenyu Arata as Roronoa Zoro in a still from “One Piece”. Photo: Casey Crafford/Netflix

Vincent Regan as Vice-Admiral Garp in a still from “One Piece”. Photo: Casey Crafford/Netflix.

Iñaki Godoy (left) as Monkey D. Luffy and Emily Rudd as Nami in a still from “One Piece”. Photo: Netfli.

(From left) Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp, Mackenyu Arata as Roronoa Zoro, Emily Rudd as Nami, Iñaki Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy, and Taz Skylar as Sanji in a still from “One Piece”. Photo: Casey Crafford/Netflix.

Disney+ drama review: American Born Chinese – Everything Everywhere stars Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan reunite in ambitious adaptation of graphic novel

Michelle Yeoh in a still from “American Born Chinese”. Photo: Disney+.

Ben Wang and Sydney Taylor in a still from “American Born Chinese”. The Disney+ series with Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan is a star-studded affair. Photo: Disney+

Daniel Wu in a still from “American Born Chinese”. Photo: Disney+

Michelle Yeoh in a still from “American Born Chinese”. Photo: Disney+

Ke Huy Quan in a still from “American Born Chinese”. Photo: Disney+

Lifestyle

Entertainment

Culture

Film & TV

Park Chan-wook, who directed The Handmaiden and Oldboy, helms this thrilling seven-part adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Vietnam war story
Robert Downey Jnr plays numerous roles and Australian actor Hoa Xuande plays The Captain, a Viet Cong spy working for the chief of the secret police


Thrilling HBO Vietnam war drama, directed by The Handmaiden’s Park Chan-wook, stars Robert Downey Jnr as various characters and Hao Xuande as a Viet Cong spy working for the chief of the secret police.


HBO and Max

Asian cinema: Korean films

Asian cinema

Cinema

What's hot in Korea

South Korean celebrities

Fame and celebrity

Hollywood

Books and literature

An assessment or critique of a service, product or creative endeavour.  Film reviews, restaurant reviews, reviews of art exhibitions. (Eg. Crazy Rich Asians: an important film, yes, but a good one?)


Review

Review | HBO drama review: The Sympathizer – Robert Downey Jnr in Park Chan-wook’s bold adaptation of Pulitzer Prize winner

Park Chan-wook, who directed The Handmaiden and Oldboy, helms this thrilling seven-part adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Vietnam war story Robert Downey Jnr plays numerous roles and Australian actor Hoa Xuande plays The Captain, a Viet Cong spy working for the chief of the secret police

Park Chan-wook, who directed The Handmaiden and Oldboy, helms this thrilling seven-part adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Vietnam war story

Robert Downey Jnr plays numerous roles and Australian actor Hoa Xuande plays The Captain, a Viet Cong spy working for the chief of the secret police