Here’s the first trailer for A24’s limited series “The Sympathizer.” The names involved alone are enough to get us excited. An April 14th premiere is now set on Max.
Fresh off 2022’s “Decision to Leave,” Park Chan-wook will be directing the first three episodes. The limited series is an adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize–winning 2015 novel of the same name, and, as you can see from the trailer, it looks like a twisty knot-filled affair.
Nguyen has mentioned that Park’s “Oldboy” was a major influence on “The Sympathizer”, so this could be the perfect union between author and filmmaker. The series stars Robert Downey Jr. and Sandra Oh.
In fact, Downey Jr. seems to be playing multiple characters "who all represent a different arm of the American establishment". I haven’t read Nguyen’s source material, so I’m not sure how this’ll fit into the story, but Downey’s performance looks damn-near gonzo in the trailer.
“The Sympathizer” is a genre-bending epic that follows an unnamed Vietnamese narrator who works as a communist double agent after immigrating to the United States. Here’s the official synopsis:
The series is based on the story of the Captain, a North Vietnam plant in the South Vietnam army. He is forced to flee to the United States with his general near the end of the Vietnam War. While living within a community of South Vietnamese refugees, he continues to secretly spy on the community and report back to the Viet Cong, struggling between his original loyalties and his new life.
Park, who shares showrunner, writer, and executive producer duties on the series, is the visionary director behind The Vengeance Trilogy, “The Handmaiden” and “Oldboy.” This is set to be his first TV series since 2018’s “The Little Drummer Girl” for AMC.