Featuring an Oscar-winning actor like you’ve never seen him before, the series is a must for fans of spy thrillers. HBO’s much-anticipated spy thriller show The Sympathizer is now streaming in its entirety via Sky Atlantic and NOW Entertainment. An adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, the series centres around the Captain (rising star Hao Xuande) – a policeman in South Vietnam during the country’s war with the United States who is secretly a communist spy for the North.
Towards the end of the conflict, he is assigned by his superiors – the Viet Cong – to flee to the US with Southern Vietnamese forces and continue to gather intelligence. While in the States, however, the Captain struggles between his original loyalties and his new life. Co-created by the acclaimed filmmaker Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden, Stoker), alongside Don McKellar (Last Night), the show is also noteworthy for the casting of recent Oscar-winner Robert Downey Jr.
in several antagonistic supporting roles – all of which are meant to represent a different part of the American establishment. Having watched the first episode of the series – which depicts the run-up to the fall of Saigon – it’s safe to say JOE is hooked on the series, mainly thanks to incredibly stylish and intoxicating filmmaking by director Park. For an example of this, you can check out a compilation of some of the amazing scene transitions from The Sympathizer right he.
