X
- 2024
- TV-MA
- HBO
- 2024
- TV-MA
- HBO
Summary North Vietnam spy The Captain (Hoa Xuande) ends up living in a South Vietnamese refugee community in Los Angeles and finds his loyalty tested in the limited series based on Viet Thanh Nguyen's novel of the same name.
Created By: Don McKellar, Park Chan-wook
- 2024
- TV-MA
- HBO
- 2024
- TV-MA
- HBO
The Sympathizer
Season 1 Premiere: Apr 14, 2024
79
5.4
Summary North Vietnam spy The Captain (Hoa Xuande) ends up living in a South Vietnamese refugee community in Los Angeles and finds his loyalty tested in the limited series based on Viet Thanh Nguyen's novel of the same name.
Created By: Don McKellar, Park Chan-wook
All Seasons
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 30 Critic Reviews
79
80% Positive
24 Reviews
24 Reviews
17% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 30 Critic Reviews
79
80% Positive
24 Reviews
24 Reviews
17% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Xuande's profoundly rich and emotionally agile work stabilizes this stylized and situational madness, defying the quotidian "sane man in an insane world" characterization by aiming for something more complicated.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 45 User Ratings
5.4
49% Positive
22 Ratings
22 Ratings
13% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
38% Negative
17 Ratings
17 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 45 User Ratings
5.4
49% Positive
22 Ratings
22 Ratings
13% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
38% Negative
17 Ratings
17 Ratings
There are no user reviews yet. Be the first to add a review.
The Captain holds it all together, in a remarkable turn by Xuande, as our lead tries to pinpoint his own identity among the disparate pieces of the parts he’s forced to play.
While the series concentrates on the powerful — and formerly powerful — Park also does a fine job of evoking the ordinary, healthy community around them, establishing itself anew at various events and gatherings. It’s not a world we’ve seen in a big-budget, big-deal TV series; there are more stories to tell there.
There's an intoxicating messiness to the seven-part series, but the nihilistic worldview makes it all coalesce into a coherent character study by its close, using that cynicism to get under its unknowable lead's skin with surprisingly affecting results.
The show, though frequently poignant and entertaining, is pulled in too many directions to establish any real sense of his [the Captain's] interior life.
Overly complicated, overly stylized and often boring, Park and co-creator Don McKellar can't coalesce the series' shifting timelines, disparate characters, cartoonish costuming and moral ambiguity into a story that pulls you in. It's a whole lot of stuff shoved in your face with very little resonance to show.
Production Company:
- A24
- Rhombus Media
- Team Downey
- Moho Film
- Cinetic Media
- A24 Television
Initial Release Date: Apr 14, 2024
Number of seasons: 1 Season
Rating: TV-MA
