Spy tales have all of the elements obligatory for wonderful tv: There’s stress, double-crossing, and the chance for tons and plenty of wigs. In The Sympathizer, most of them are worn by Robert Downey, Jr.
Based mostly on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer appears like our subsequent huge spy obsession. It’s a landmark adaptation of an acclaimed Vietnamese work, and it marks Park Chan-wook’s return to tv 5 years after his wonderful 2018 AMC miniseries The Little Drummer Woman. (And a yr after releasing considered one of 2022’s greatest movies, Choice to Go away.)
Taking a cue from its dizzying supply materials — which gleefully hops from style to style with a dizzyingly recursive narrative about an nameless North Vietnamese spy embedded within the South Vietnamese military, who expatriates to the US for, amongst different issues, a farcical movie manufacturing — the trailer for The Sympathizer is splendidly confounding.
Starring Hoa Xuande because the protagonist (dubbed “The Captain”), the trailer offers us a glimpse of The Captain’s Catch-22-esque journey in espionage, the place he appears to come across a number of characters, all performed by Robert Downey, Jr. circa the Vietnam Conflict.
From the footage proven, The Sympathizer seems to be each a worthy adaptation of a wealthy novel and one other exhibition for Park Chan-wook’s formidable spy-thriller chops.
The Sympathizer premieres reside on HBO and on Max streaming in 2024.
