adapt a piece of fiction likeThe Sympathizer , Viet Thanh Nguyen ’s Pulitzer Prize - deliver the goods debut novel , is no easy feat . The account book , among the most acclaimed of the past tense decade , is thematically rich and formally playful . It follows its own set of ruler and does so with alluring gusto . sprain it into a TV serial would be one thing , but making it into a great one that really holds on to the depth and complexness of its source material would be another , much more hard , take exception on the whole . That is , nonetheless , incisively what HBO , OldboydirectorPark Chan - wook , and co - creator Don McKellar have done .
The Sympathizer , which airs on HBO and current on Max , is one of the most dizzying TV productions of late memory . It ’s an endlessly watchable , provocative , and stylistically bold thriller that juggles so many moments of existential dramatic event , slant - black-market drollery , and good older - fashioned suspense across its seven instalment that one is oftentimes left with their jaw on the floor . It rank well powerful alongside FX’sShōgun , Netflix’sRipley , and Amazon’sMr . & Mrs. Smithas one of the very best television shows of the year .
Sticking as close to its source fabric ’s plot as it can , The Sympathizertells the twisty tale of the Captain ( Cowboy Bebopstar Hoa Xuande ) , a North Vietnamese undercover agent wreak undercover in the mid-1970s to undermine the capitalistic effort of not only his South Vietnamese boss , known only as the General ( Toan Le ) , but also his longtime CIA handler , Claude ( 2024 Oscar succeeder Robert Downey Jr. ) . When it count like the North Vietnamese are in the end on the verge of recapture Saigon and ending the Vietnam War , the Captain is informed by his fellow communistic sympathizer and longtime friend , Man ( Duy Nguyễn ) , that he will not be allowed to stay in his home country .
Instead , the Captain is ordered to go to America and continue cover on the General ’s actions and plans , which he does . The longer he stays in America , though , the more conflicted the Captain becomes over his continued persona in a war that many believe to be over . The Sympathizer , for its part , wildly bounces around in time as it charts its protagonist ’s journeying from Vietnam to America and back again as he try out to win over a skeptical North Vietnamese agent that he is the loyal communist undercover agent he claims to be . The series , like the Bible its establish on , uses the Captain ’s extend confession in the latter period as a framing equipment for its intact story . That permit it a excursive kind of exemption in its telling that makes watchingThe Sympathizerconsistently entertaining and unpredictable .
The show has a lot of info that it has to communicate at all times , and yet its purposefully convolute plot never feels overwhelming or perplexing . That is , in no modest part , due to the rigorous nature of Park and McKellar ’s playscript , as well as the latter ’s commission ofThe Sympathizer‘s stun first three episode ( Marc Munden andCity of Godfilmmaker Fernando Meirelles direct its other chapters ) . As a director , Park has always been skilled at pass along complex layers of entropy in a manner that is not just digestible , but invigoratingly ocular . That ability is on full display inThe Sympathizer , a series that uses simple ocular tricks like cutaways , observational television camera genus Pan , fast - forwards , and rewinds to further engross viewers not only in the Captain ’s book - duration confession . but also his ever - disruptive mental state .
The Sympathizer‘s in darkness risible stripe also does a lot to make the considerable load of data it run on its back seem lighter than it is . The serial , in true Park Chan - wook way , routinely blends moments of horror , violence , and tragedy with instances of wry , occasionally slapstick sense of humour . In one scene , the Captain impetuously covers up the face of a adult male he ’s about to belt down with a takeout bag from a local Warren Burger place — its smiley logo staring back at him as he pulls the induction of his gun . In subsequent episodes , the Captain sees the chain ’s smirking logo on lampshade , gondola rims , and even the moon itself . It ’s a fall back beat that offers important brainwave into the character ’s arise guilt over his actions , but it ’s also a morbidly funny visual gag that feels of a piece with the overall surreality ofThe Sympathizer‘s fashion and story .
Thanks to its seventies Hollywood - inspired detail and overarching , wild creative sprightliness , The Sympathizeremerges as a telly show that looks and move unlike any other . At times , its redaction rhythms feel shockingly experimental . Donald Graham Burt and Alec Hammond ’s colourful output invention , meanwhile , only makes it feel all the more heightened and dreamlike , and the same become for Downey Jr. ’s contribution . The longtime Marvel whizz plays multiple office inThe Sympathizerand assume completely unlike , mostly transformative looks for each . He appears throughout the series as not just Claude , but also “ Napalm ” Ned , a military stager turned politician ; Professor Hammer , a anti-Semite academician who hunt his college ’s “ Oriental Studies ” programme ; and Niko , an egotistical movie maker who hires the Captain to help him make an “ authentic ” movie about the Vietnam War .
Downey Jr. ’s performances are , for the most part , glorious to find , and his multiple purpose service a capital use inThe Sympathizerthan just letting its great star go sick on - CRT screen . They make the show ’s oddball overture to its history expressed and , even more significantly , make the Captain ’s conflict to accommodate onto his indistinguishability seem all the more slippy . After all , how is someone guess to keep hold of themselves when not only are they play different parts at once , but so it seems is everyone else ?
The fact thatThe Sympathizeris able to in effect call for such enquiry in the cartoonish room it does is test copy of just how unbendable of a grip it has on its story and tone at all times . As is the case with so many of the motion-picture show that Park Chan - wook has had a hired man in over the years , learn it feels a bite like watch out the greatest magic act you ’ll ever see . It pull off more on the face of it unimaginable trick than most TV shows would ever daydream of assay , and it ’s got even more aces hide up its sleeve than you ’ll see issue forth . Sometimes , all one can do is sit down back and gonorrhea .
The Sympathizerpremieres Sunday , April 14 on HBO . Modern episode debut weekly on Sundays . Digital Trends was given other access to all seven of the show ’s installments .
