The Sympathizer

Didn't quite live up to the massive expectations I had from an HBO and A24 co-production, but it's still better than a lot of miniseries you'll watch.

The Sympathizer is all about perspective. A Vietnamese perspective of the events. A Communist perspective of the events. Something that is absent from the Hollywood productions about the war.

The complex politics of Vietnam War told by our lead, two-faced spy, and unreliable narrator, the Captain. Hoa Xuande gives an absolutely great performance in this role, supported by Oscar winner, Robert Downey Jr in multiple roles.

As I haven't read the original novel, I cannot judge this show as an adaptation. But, the writing and story deserves a lot of praise. Doesn't take sides and criticises both parties of the war along with the American influence. According to writer's own words, he understood "how the revolution had gone from being the vanguard of political change to the rearguard hoarding power".

PCW's direction in the first 3 episodes is great, as expected. His style, especially in the editing choices, is absent from the rest of the episodes. It also has a bit of pacing issue for which I couldn't engage with the plot as I would have loved to. That's why I am not rating it any higher. But I loved the ending, and the finale was my favourite episode.

I had high expectations for The Sympathizer but it didn't really pan out like I hoped it would.

Robert Downey Jr. Puts in an Emmy-bait performance, playing multiple roles, but they all seemed to be the same guy with just slight variations. There's a story-based reason for this if you stick it out till the end but it still did not come off well, watching a parade of cliches march through the story in lieu of well-rounded characters.

Another major mistake was casting an actor who is obviously 100% Vietnamese as a Eurasian character, which necessitated silly things like awkward looking blue contact lenses and white makeup that must have been stolen from Michael Jackson's cosmetics case.

The actor who played Bon was good though. The story always came alive when he was in a scene. The best episode was the one dealing with a zany movie about the Vietnam War and shot in Napa (??? Must have been a cheap quickie, not something Coppola or Scorsese would have stooped to).

The Vietnamese refugee community was fun, especially the demented General. But the lead character was always lying and being evasive, running away from himself, not even sure who he was. I guess that was the point of the story but when you have an unappealing lead character, it drags down the story.

Worth watching, but only just barely. HBO's glory days of prestige productions seems to be waning. Under Zaslav, I don't expect even productions of this caliber. Zaslav thinks HBO is a good brand to slap on a Harry Potter series.

The first and second episode got me get up on my feet and applause at the end credit when nobody's even looking. Interesting and intelligent at the same time. Historical and very well researched on that time but snazzy at the same time. A story within a story organization is freaking genius The external narrative is The Captain in the reeducation camp, and the inner narrative is his experience as a spy from around the fall of Saigon to new (but not very new) life in America. Because he's telling the story in front of a guard, how far is the inner narrative true? The audience experiences 'the war of memory' second handedly because the captain might restart, recollect, and reeducate.

It's not just about the story. It also feels like I'm watching the theater within the series. The first interrogation scene on the stage with the lighting makes another frame within frame. A fictional film 'The Hamlet' in Episode 4 is played like a movie within a series as well. Like there is no camera rolling, it changes the screen ratio for 'The Hamlet'. Again, frame within a frame. Park knows how to use the screen to the fullest.

However, from episode 3, 'Sympathizer' becomes loose and flabby. Park's direction is sometimes for the sake of the direction itself. It shows off and screams 'I'm such a good director', and has nothing to do with connecting with the audience. His direction does not make the story fuller or the message louder. It's just artsy. And, what is the purpose of Downey Jr. Taking four roles? He was not even that good, and it was ineffective and inefficient, adding just confusion. Hoa Xuande, on the contrary, is a newly discovered talent. He succeeds in not losing wit and humor in serious situations. His acting is on point especially in the black comedy.

I had hopes for this show especially with Park Chan Wook involved. It was interesting to see RDJ play different roles but no one would be surprised with his versatility in acting skills. The show started off decent but felt the show just wasn't executed in the best way possible. The story felt dragged out each episode with only a seven episode count and although it was nice to see some Asian representation, I just didn't care much for any of the characters. They might've been better off with doing a 2 hour movie. The satire tone worked on some parts but really was overdone throughout the show. I expected something more to keep me engaged and feel some type of emotional attachment but it never delivered. Considering that Hoa Xuande was playing a Vietnamese communist spy, I wanted to see more scenes that made you want to empathize more for the character so by the time the ending came, you'd feel satisfied with the outcome of his character.

I was really looking forward to watching this, especially after reading the source material and its sequel. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't as great as it could have been. I thought the creative liberties taken were welcome, but what I thought was missing through the series was The Captain's thoughts on capitalism, imperialism, and what it is like being Asian in the U. S. A. His thoughts were touched upon, but never examined with the level of depth the book did.

The story is ultimately about how The Captain lost sight of which side he was fighting for, and that he couldn't be a part of what he hoped to. That wasn't conveyed as clearly as it could have been.

The show felt more interested in showing the General as paranoid, yet intimidating and RDJ as the deceiptfulness of white America / imperialism.