Introduction

The Sympathizer (Vietnamese: Cảm tình viên) is a historical black comedy drama miniseries based on the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by American writer Viet Thanh Nguyen.

Outline

The series is based on the story of the Captain, a North Vietnamese spy serving in the South Vietnamese army. He is forced to flee to the United States with his general at the end of the Vietnam War. While living within a community of South Vietnamese refugees in Southern California, he continues to secretly spy on the community and report back to the Communist Vietnamese government that took control of the country. He struggles between his original loyalties and his new life.

Cast

• Main:
  • Hoa Xuande as the Captain, a captain in the South Vietnamese military who is secretly a communist spy for the North
  • Robert Downey Jr. in several antagonist roles, including (in order of appearance):
  • Claude, a CIA agent who mentors the Captain
  • Professor Robert Hammer, the Captain’s Orientalist grad school professor
  • Ned Godwin, a Congressman in Southern California trying to appeal to the local Vietnamese American population
  • Niko Damianos, an auteur filmmaker making a film on the Vietnam War, inspired by Francis Ford Coppola and John Landis
  • The Priest, who is the Captain’s French white father
  • Toan Le as the General (Trọng), a high-ranking Southern Vietnamese general who is the Captain’s superior
  • Fred Nguyen Khan as Bốn, the Captain’s childhood best friend
  • Duy Nguyễn as Mẫn, the Captain’s other childhood friend and his Communist handler
  • Vy Le as Lana, the General’s daughter and the Captain’s love interest
  • Ky Duyen as Madame, the General’s wife
  • Phanxinê as the Major (Oanh), an incompetent major secretly running a black market operation, whom the Captain decides to frame
  • Kieu Chinh as the Major’s Mother
  • Alan Trong as Sonny Tran, a Vietnamese American reporter and the Captain’s former college rival
  • Sandra Oh as Ms. Sofia Mori, a Japanese American secretary who develops a sexual relationship with the Captain

• Supporting:
  • VyVy Nguyen as the Major’s wife
  • Kayli Tran as the Communist Spy
  • Scott Ly as Gunner Dao
  • David Duchovny as Ryan Glenn, an acclaimed but volatile method actor playing Captain Shamus in The Hamlet, loosely based on Marlon Brando
  • John Cho as James Yoon, a Korean-American actor playing Kim in The Hamlet
  • Max Whittington-Cooper as Jamie Johnson, a popular soul singer and first-time actor playing Lieutenant Bellamy in The Hamlet
  • Marine Delterme as Monique Thibault, the production designer of The Hamlet and Niko’s girlfriend
  • Phong Le as The Watchman

Production

Development

According to author Viet Thanh Nguyen, he insisted that any show adapted from his novel The Sympathizer be centred around Vietnamese people speaking Vietnamese. In early meetings, producers were uneasy about this requirement, but after political unrests during the Trump administration, the murders of George Floyd in 2020 and of six Asian-American women in Atlanta in 2021, the tone shifted.

In April 2021, Viet Thanh Nguyen announced that the novel had been optioned by A24 to be adapted into a television series with Park Chan-wook directing. Rhombus Media is also involved in the production. In July, HBO ordered the series from A24, and Robert Downey Jr. joined the project in a producer and co-star role. The state of California awarded the production over $17.4 million in tax credits ensuring significant production would take place in state. Marc Munden and Fernando Meirelles were also hired to direct some episodes of the series.

Casting

Casting director Jennifer Venditti opened a worldwide casting call in order to find a main cast of Vietnamese descent, ultimately hiring Hoa Xuande, Fred Nguyen Khan, Toan Le, Vy Le, and Alan Trong. Recurring roles for Sandra Oh, Kieu Chinh, and Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen were also announced in November 2022, and Downey was portraying several supporting antagonistic roles representing the American establishment. In May 2023, Scott Ly and Marine Delterme joined the cast, in recurring roles.

The majority of the cast and crew are of Vietnamese origin, and more than half of the dialogue is in Vietnamese in order to reflect the Vietnamese experience, including refugees in the United States. Hoa Xuande had to take a crash course to improve his Vietnamese to prepare for the main role.

The actor Phanxinê, who is a well-known filmmaker in Vietnam, wanted to keep his involvement in the project private for as long as possible to minimise the political backlash he might receive. He has said that many friends discouraged him from participating. It took him a while to decide to take the role of The Major because the project is politically sensitive. He finally took it because he saw the role as safe as “he shows a good side of Vietnamese men.” Fred Nguyen Khan and Duy Nguyễn, who play the Captain’s best friends, are also best friends in real life.

Filming

Filming took place in Los Angeles and Thailand. The crew’s numerous attempts to obtain permission to film in Vietnam were rebuffed by its government. The production used Thailand as a stand-in for Vietnamese scenes.

Downey shaved his head for the series in order to save the time required to use a bald cap for each of the various characters he portrayed. A significant portion of Downey’s performance was improvised.

Release

The series premiered on HBO and became available to stream on Max on 14 April 2024.

In Vietnam

In Vietnam, the Communist government did not allow the series to be filmed locally, and the completed series was banned from being shown. At the time of the series’ premiere, no official Vietnamese translation of The Sympathizer novel (which was released in English in the US) had been published in the country. A major publisher had bought the translation rights years earlier, shortly after the novel won the Pulitzer Prize in the US.

After the series premiered, many articles about its production that were previously published in major newspapers were no longer accessible online, as if there was a censorship directive from the highest level or due to self-censorship, although unevenly applied. An article in the state-run newspaper Tuổi trẻ Thủ đô described the series as “poisonous” and warned that “social media pages belonging to hostile forces […] acclaimed the content of the series and cleverly integrated details that distorted Vietnamese history to sabotage the Party and the State”. It called on young viewers to “heighten vigilance for false information regarding territorial sovereignty as well as Vietnamese history that hostile forces cleverly integrated or propagated via cinematic works.” Công an nhân dân, the official mouthpiece of the Ministry of Public Security, stated that the series has “distorted content”, was created by “opposing elements”, and that the release of the series so close to Reunification Day was made “with negative intention, to distort the triumph of the people of Vietnam.”

The Sympathizer Series

• Episode 01: Death Wish.
• Episode 02: Good Little Asian.
• Episode 03: Love It or Leave It.
• Episode 04: Give Us Some Good Lines.
• Episode 05: All for One.
• Episode 06: The Oriental Mode of Transport.
• Episode 07: Endings Are Hard, Aren’t They?.

Production & Filming Details

• Director(s):
  • Park Chan-wook … (3 episodes, 2024)
  • Marc Munden … (3 episodes, 2024)
  • Fernando Meirelles … (1 episode, 2024)
• Producer(s):
  • Jes Anderson … producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Fraser Ash … co-executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Jisun Back … executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Kris Baucom … producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Amanda Burrell … executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Park Chan-wook … executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Sydney Coleman … associate producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Robert Downey Jr. … executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Niv Fichman … executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Maegan Houang … co-producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Naomi Iizuka … co-executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Kevin Krikst … co-executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Jahye Lee … co-producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Kim Ly … executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Don McKellar … executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Ravi Nandan … executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Ava Nelson … co-producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Viet Thanh Nguyen … executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Ted Pacult … producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Mark Richard … co-executive producer / executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Ron Schmidt … executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Hallie Sekoff … executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Nicholas Simon … co-producer / thailand unit: co-producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • John Sloss … executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Karen Wacker … co-executive producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Inman Young … producer (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Nattaya ‘Pueng’ Anuruk … line producer: bts thailand / thailand unit: line producer (6 episodes, 2024)
  • Susan Downey … executive producer (6 episodes, 2024)
  • Ira Parker … consulting producer (6 episodes, 2024)
  • Vikash Patel … associate producer (6 episodes, 2024)
  • Taofik Kolade … co-executive producer (5 episodes, 2024)
• Writer(s):
  • Park Chan-wook … (created by) (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Park Chan-wook … (written for television by) (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Tea Ho … (staff writer) (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Anchuli Felicia King … (story editor) (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Anchuli Felicia King … (written for television by) (1 episode, 2024)
  • Don McKellar … (created by) (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Don McKellar … (written for television by) (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Viet Thanh Nguyen … (based on the novel by) (7 episodes, 2024)
  • Maegan Houang … (written for television by) (1 episode, 2024)
  • Naomi Iizuka … (written for television by) (1 episode, 2024)
  • Mark Richard … (written for television by) (1 episode, 2024)
• Music:
  • Cho Young-wuk … (7 episodes, 2024)
• Cinematography:
  • Kim Ji-yong … (6 episodes, 2024)
  • Barry Ackroyd … (1 episode, 2024)
• Editor(s):
  • Jin Lee … (3 episodes, 2024)
  • Vikash Patel … (3 episodes, 2024)
  • Fernando Stutz … (1 episode, 2024)
• Production:
  • A24
  • Rhombus Media
  • Team Downey
  • Moho Film
  • Cinetic Media
  • A24 Television
• Distributor(s):
  • Home Box Office (HBO) (United States, 2024)(TV)
  • HBO Latin America (Argentina, 2024)(TV)
  • HBO Max (United States, 2024)(VOD, video)
  • Max (United States, 2024)(VOD, video)
• Release Date: 14 April 2024 to 26 May 2024.
• Running Time: 60 minutes (per episode).
• Rating: TV-MA.
• Country: US.
• Language: English.

Video Link(s)