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The Sympathizer Series-Premiere Recap: Runaway


Get ready to pause, rewind, and replay in Park Chan-wook’s series about Vietnam War-era spy games.

HBO and A24’s adaptation of The Sympathizer, a limited series based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, opens with an oft-quoted passage by the author: “All wars are fought twice. A half-Vietnamese, half-French Communist, the Captain is “cursed to see every issue from both sides.” Even his blood brothers, Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan) and Man (Duy Nguyễn) are divided along party lines. The Sympathizer may be well-positioned to do so under the creative direction of its non-American showrunners: Park Chan-wook, the South Korean auteur behind Oldboy, The Handmaiden, and Decision to Leave, and Don McKellar, a Canadian filmmaker.

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