--- title: "The Sympathizer" year: 2024 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/the-sympathizer" fi1m_score: 72 critics_score: 73 critics_reviews: 14 published: "2026-09-17T13:36:28.764418+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T13:36:52.188123+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Sympathizer (2024) Created by Don McKellar, Park Chan-wook · MPA TV-MA · Drama, War & Politics **Fi1m score: 72** · Critics 73 from 14 reviews *In a sentence:* A spy confesses for seven episodes and the same American keeps walking in wearing a new wig > Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar turn Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel into a stylish, frequently funny spy story told from the Vietnamese side. Hoa Xuande is superb; Robert Downey Jr.’s five roles are a joke the series tells too often, and the middle episodes drift. ## Synopsis Saigon, April 1975. The Captain (Hoa Xuande) is aide to the General (Toan Le), who runs the South Vietnamese secret police, and is a communist mole reporting to his blood brother Man (Duy Nguyen). As the city falls, his CIA contact Claude (Robert Downey Jr.) finds seats on one of the last planes out. The Captain boards with the General, the General’s wife Madame (Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen) and his other blood brother Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan), a paratrooper who hates communists, and follows them into exile in Los Angeles, where his orders are to keep watching. He tells it from a re-education camp, writing a confession that the Commandant (Quinn Hoàng) keeps sending back for another draft. ## Review Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel is narrated by a communist mole who follows the South Vietnamese general he is supposed to be betraying out of Saigon and into exile. Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar have made it into seven episodes: a spy story, a refugee story set in Los Angeles and a running argument with the Hollywood version of the war. It is handsome, clever and often funny. It is also a series with one joke about casting, told five times. We liked it, with reservations, mostly in the second half. The frame is a confession. The Captain (Hoa Xuande) writes his account in a re-education camp for a Commandant (Quinn Hoàng) who keeps sending it back, and the series lets him stop, rewind and tell it again. A device that could have been tiresome gives the whole thing its rhythm. The first episode takes us out of Saigon in April 1975, and the airfield sequence, shells falling and families running for a plane that is already moving, had us gripped because we did not know who would make it. We were quietly shaken by the end, and we will leave it there. Xuande has the harder job and does it beautifully. The Captain must be liked by the General (Toan Le), trusted by his CIA contact Claude (Robert Downey Jr.), loved by his blood brothers Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan) and Man (Duy Nguyen), and lying to nearly all of them most of the time. Xuande plays it without a wink. He listens, agrees, pours the drinks, and only in voiceover tells us what he thinks, in a dry, weary murmur that treats his predicament as slightly absurd. When he is allowed to feel something the effect is out of all proportion, and Sandra Oh, as Sofia Mori, who takes up with him in Los Angeles, is the one who unlocks it. Barry Ackroyd and Kim Ji-yong shoot Saigon in thick yellow humidity and Los Angeles in flat white sunshine that makes the exiles look as if they have wandered onto the wrong set. Donald Graham Burt gives the General a strip-mall liquor store, and Danny Glicker dresses him in suits he wears like a uniform. Jo Yeong-wook’s score is jaunty when the material is grim and mournful when it is comic, and the mismatch is the point. Lee Jin, Vikash Patel and Fernando Stutz cut the Captain’s rewinds so lightly that they feel like a man correcting himself mid-sentence. Then there is Downey. He plays Claude; Professor Hammer, an academic; Ned Godwin, a congressman; Niko Damianos, a director making a Vietnam film; and a priest, each under a different wig and set of teeth. The idea is plain: every white American with power over the Captain is the same man. We laughed the first two times, mostly at Hammer, who makes the Captain list his Oriental and Occidental qualities in two columns. Then we noticed that whenever Downey walked in we stopped watching the Captain and started watching Downey, which is the opposite of what the series wants. Park directs the opening episodes and they have the wit in the camera: a pan that turns into a rewind, a cut that lands a beat early. Marc Munden and Fernando Meirelles take the rest, and the series settles into something more ordinary. The middle stretch, the General’s circle plotting, drinking and suspecting one another while the Captain reports to Man by letter, loses the thread more than once. Around the fourth episode we were unsure who was informing on whom and, worse, not much minding. The Hollywood episode, with Damianos bellowing at a fake Vietnam full of extras who are real refugees, pulls it back, and the closing episode is as strong as the first. Against Park’s own television work this is looser. *The Little Drummer Girl* (2018) also sent an amateur into a double life and never let us lose the thread. Here it is lost and found several times, and the finding is usually Xuande. Watch it two episodes at a time, with your full attention, and do not start it at midnight. It asks a good deal of you and pays most of it back. *Fi1m score 72, published 17 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (14) - **The Telegraph** (5/5): This is a complex, deeply moving drama that flips historical viewpoints on the Vietnam War with dark comedy and strong performances from Hoa Xuande and Robert Downey Jr. It serves as a subversive take that may shift perspectives, with standout episodes skewering Hollywood appropriation. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/the-sympathizer-hbo-sky-atlantic-review/) - **The Guardian** (80/100, inferred): The series is an ambitious, stylish adaptation of the novel that demands attention with its non-linear structure, visual flair, and themes of identity and imperialism. It balances dark comedy, violence, and serious questions effectively through strong performances, though the Robert Downey Jr. multiple-role conceit can feel distracting at times and style occasionally overshadows substance. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/may/27/the-sympathizer-review-robert-downey-jr-thunders-around-in-prosthetics-in-this-stylish-vietnam-drama) - **Empire**, Olly Richards (70/100, inferred): The adaptation is a big, fiercely intelligent, often very funny and sometimes difficult drama that wrestles the novel's many themes into mostly digestible shape. It explores identity and multiple viewpoints on war through strong lead work from Hoa Xuande and eccentric supporting turns, especially Robert Downey Jr. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/the-sympathizer/) - **Radio Times** (70/100, inferred): Duality abounds in this stylish, gripping and immersive series from Park Chan-wook, which examines race, identity and representation through the conflicted Captain's experiences. Minor pacing issues across the run are the only drawback in an otherwise marvellous, authentic drama anchored by a remarkable lead performance. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/the-sympathizer-review-park-chan-wook/) - **The i Paper** (70/100, inferred): The series is a striking and sprawling limited drama that presents the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese perspective in a way Hollywood would never attempt. It mixes spy thriller, satire and immigrant epic with visual audacity and comic relief offsetting the horrors, though it demands attention from viewers. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/sympathizer-review-striking-vietnam-war-drama-hollywood-never-make-3070431) - **Variety** (70/100, inferred): The HBO adaptation effectively uses Robert Downey Jr.'s shape-shifting performance to rewrite Hollywood's history of the Vietnam War while centering the Vietnamese perspective. It moves metatextual commentary to the fore in a dense, ambitious and tonally varied project, though the Captain's story suffers somewhat in the transition from novel to screen. [Read](https://variety.com/2024/tv/tv-reviews/the-sympathizer-review-hbo-1235959525/) - **Vulture**, Kathryn VanArendonk (70/100, inferred): Park Chan-wook’s HBO adaptation is a captivating senior seminar on postcolonial theory that builds ideas into character-driven fiction, though it sometimes lets the syllabus show through. It excels in visuals, black humor, and the lead performance but is undermined by the distracting Robert Downey Jr. casting conceit. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/the-sympathizer-hbo-park-chan-wook-review.html) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Daniel Fienberg (30/100, inferred): Robert Downey Jr. dazzles with dexterous performances in multiple roles but distracts as the misplaced fulcrum in this uneven adaptation of the Pulitzer-winning novel. The series about a Vietnamese double agent loses tonal and narrative balance at times despite strong elements from creators Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/the-sympathizer-review-robert-downey-jr-hbo-1235868722/) - **Collider**, Nate Richard (9/10): The critic praises it as a fascinating, faithful adaptation blending black comedy and satire, calling it a future television classic. They single out Robert Downey Jr.'s transformative performances and Hoa Xuande's outstanding anchoring role for praise. [Read](https://collider.com/the-sympathizer-hbo-review/) - **Consequence** (A-): The critic finds it a captivating, lively limited series that masterfully adapts the novel with humor and meta touches, highlighting the strong direction, breakout performance by Hoa Xuande, and effective use of Downey's multiple roles. [Read](https://consequence.net/2024/04/sympathizer-review-robert-downey-jr-hbo/) - **Den of Geek**, Sam Stone (4/5): The series is a big creative swing with an off-kilter picaresque tone that mostly connects, thanks to strong work from Hoa Xuande and memorable (if uneven) Robert Downey Jr. turns. It subverts Vietnam War expectations with humor, heartbreak, and questions of identity while delivering at a deliberate pace. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-sympathizer-review-robert-downey-jr/) - **Paste**, Rory Doherty (7.8/10): The review highlights the series as a piercing spy thriller grounded by Park Chan-wook's direction, praising the bold, slick execution and the exploration of identity and displacement. It notes some unevenness when other directors take over but ultimately commends the intimate closing and Xuande's performance. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/hbo-max/the-sympathizer-review) - **Digital Spy**, Janet A Leigh (70/100, inferred): The adaptation demands viewer attention but rewards with rich, powerful storytelling centered on duality and identity, anchored by arresting performances from Hoa Xuande and Sandra Oh. Its cinematic style, voiceover intimacy, and nuanced take on history and Asian-American experience make it a compelling if challenging watch. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a60895510/sympathizer-review-sandra-oh/) - **The Ringer**, Daniel Chin (70/100, inferred): The miniseries is a worthy adaptation that captures much of the novel's sharp wit and biting satire of Hollywood's Vietnam War portrayals, though its unevenness across seven episodes prevents it from fully matching the source material's heights. Park Chan-wook's distinctive cinematic flair and absurdist humor in the first three episodes stand out, along with the lead performance by Hoa Xuande. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2024/04/12/tv/the-sympathizer-hbo-a24-miniseries-park-chan-wook-robert-downey-jr-vietnam-war) ## Details - **Created by:** Don McKellar, Park Chan-wook - **Creator:** Don McKellar, Park Chan-wook - **Director:** Park Chan-wook, Marc Munden, Fernando Meirelles - **Writer:** Park Chan-wook, Don McKellar, Anchuli Felicia King, Mark Richard, Naomi Iizuka, Maegan Houang - **Novel:** Viet Thanh Nguyen - **Cinematography:** Kim Ji-yong, Barry Ackroyd - **Editor:** Vikash Patel, Lee Jin, Fernando Stutz - **Music:** Jo Yeong-wook - **Production design:** Donald Graham Burt - **Costume design:** Danny Glicker - **Producer:** Ted Pacult, Inman Young, Kris Baucom - **Cast:** Hoa Xuande as The Captain; Robert Downey Jr. as Claude / Professor Hammer / Ned Godwin / Niko Damianos / Priest; Toan Le as The General; Fred Nguyen Khan as Bon; Duy Nguyen as Man; Vy Le as Lana; Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen as Madame; Phan Gia Nhat Linh as Crapulent Major - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-MA - **Release (the US):** 14 April 2024 - **Genres:** Drama, War & Politics - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47dRkhiERpE ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming, uhd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd - Apple TV: buy, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IS, IT, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Little Drummer Girl* (2018): Park Chan-wook’s earlier spy series, tighter and just as handsome, with a clearer thread. - *The Handmaiden* (2016), Fi1m 85: Park’s con-artist romance, told twice from two sides, and the second telling changes everything. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-handmaiden.md) - *Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy* (2011), Fi1m 84: A mole hunt in which nobody raises their voice and everyone is lying. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy.md) - *Da 5 Bloods* (2020): Spike Lee sends four veterans back to Vietnam and argues with the same old films. - *Cyclo* (1995): Tran Anh Hung’s Ho Chi Minh City, seen from a rickshaw, with no Americans in sight. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/the-sympathizer