Alien among strangers

The series "Symparting" from the director "Oldboy" seems to be one of the best shows of spring. He was removed by the Pulitzer laureate book and tells about the Vietnamese War through the eyes of the Vietnamese

On April 14, the “sympathetic” launched at HBO-a multi-part retro comedy based on the bestseller of the same name Viet Than Nguen. The first three episodes were shot by Pak Chkhan-UK (Oldboy, the decision to leave), and the Oscar-winning actor Robert Dauni Jr. played several characters at once.

1975, the climax of the Vietnamese War. The nameless captain serves on the side of the pro -American South Vietnam, fought with the Communists faithfully and truth. His boss is a bloodthirsty secret police general, whose one name inspires fear in others, and the main ally is an unclean CIA Cloud Agent. When it becomes clear that Vietcon is about to take Saigon, the highest leadership is urgently evacuated to the United States. The captain accompanies the military elite in Los Angeles, where, together with other refugees, life begins with a clean sheet. However, the emigrants do not intend to linger in a foreign land: having not really assimilated, the general and his close associates develop a plan to seize power in Vietnam. The key link of the special operation of the counter -revolutionaries, of course, appoint the captain. None of those present suspects that the Adjutant's devoted business is a scout who spying in favor of the Communists for many years. The traitor regularly scribbles encrypted letters to his homeland, reporting on what is happening in Los Angeles, but, without noticing it, is imbued with ideological enemies with sympathy.

The longer the captain works undercover, the more difficult it is for him to understand on whose side he is.

“Sympathetic” is a spy series based on a prisoner of Pulitzer Prize, the writer's novel Viet Than Nguen. The emergence of a large -scale film adaptation of the work where the Vietnamese is the narrator is the result of the Trendy Culture Trend in the United States ( the series “Segun” fits into the same trend). The unprecedented loyalty to the non-American directors, in this case, to South Korets Pak Chkhan-Uka, made it possible to create a series where it is almost the first time for the American audience to look at that war from the point of view of the Vietnamese themselves.

The efforts of the Hollywood of the 1970-80s, the Vietnamese military company became a recognizable element of pop culture. Moreover, the fighting was invariably displayed in films on behalf of the Americans, and the Vietnamese more often presented a faceless mass, either hostile or incomprehensible, alien. In the “sympathetic”, the situation ironically turns upside down: Cast is almost completely Vietnamese, while a few white Americans, on the contrary, is played by one actor-Robert Dauni Jr.. Having escaped from the shackles of Marvel, EX-Toni Stark received the long-awaited Oscar for Oppenheimer, and now he will almost certainly take Emmy. If Nolan Dauni Jr. reminded everyone that he is actually an outstanding dramatic actor, then Pak Chkhan-Ukhka “Iron Man” fully reveals his comedic potential. In the “sympathetic”, he played at least four different characters, his eccentric referring to “Soldiers of Failure”-Ben Stiller’s comedy about shooting a film about the war in Vietnam (there Dauni Jr. played an actor who, in turn, playing a black soldier). In addition to the caricature agent of the CIA Claude, in the “sympathetic” Dauni Jr. also played the roles of a pot-bellied professor-healing, thinking about Asians exclusively stereotypes; Los Angeles Congressman, using South Vietnamese refugees as a political base; And the narcissistic director, who takes off the middle between the Apocalypse Today and the Pillars.

Robert Dauni Jr. is one of the main attractions of the series. However, all his appearance is episodic, while the true star of the project is the obligatory Hoa Xuande. The Australian with Vietnamese roots fit perfectly into the image of a man who was trying to unsuccessfully trying to find his own identity. The captain played by him is a half-breed, the son of a 13-year-old Vietnamese and a French priest. The hero spent his youth in the United States, where he learned to speak with an impeccable American accent, but the ardent communist could not accept capitalism. Returning to his homeland, the captain serves in South Vietnam, but spy in favor of the North, stuck somewhere in the middle.

The origins of dualism, which became the leitmotif of the plot, should be sought in the biography of the author of the novel, born four years before the fall of Saigon.

Like an nameless protagonist, Vieus Than Nguyen lived on the territory of wrestlers with communism, and when the “Reds” seized power, he fled to Los Angeles together with his parents. Being torn from one culture and immersed in a completely different one, Nguyen ran into duality, a familiar, perhaps, to all American Asians. Therefore, the book image of the captain - an outsider among his own and among strangers - was so voluminous. The character remained the same convincing in the series, which is the considerable merit of Xuande.

Already according to the first episodes, it is clear that the HBO and A24 “Sympathetic” is one of the most witty series of recent years. Like the literary source, the film adaptation turned out to be surprisingly light, dynamic and funny, and the retro-aesthetics of the 1970s is a real holiday for the eyes. The remaining four episodes of the mini-series were directed by masters such as Fernando Merilesh (“City of God”) and Mark Manden (“Utopia”), so there is every reason to believe that the Planck’s pag-mockery will be withheld.