[Warning: The following contains Major spoilers for The Sympathizer finale.] The Sympathizer delivered one last Robert Downey Jr. character in its grueling finale on Sunday, May 26. The HBO Vietnam War satire has been using the Oscar winner to represent the American, patriarchal white male archetype throughout the seven-episode season. This was a narrative devise devised by director Park Chan-wook, and the fifth and final Rdj character in The Sympathizer connected them all together in a way viewers may not have expected. Sandra Oh previously told TV Insider that having Downey, known best for playing Iron Man/Tony Stark — a weapons manufacturer turned superhero — was “bold” and intelligent and “meta.” He plays CIA agent Claude, Professor Hammer, politician Ned Godwin, and Hollywood director Nikos Damianos, all of whom use Vietnamese people for their own gain in their own twisted ways, whether that be profiting off of war through government action or through the Hollywood movie-making machine. The last...
- 5/28/2024
- TV Insider
[Warning: The following contains Major spoilers for The Sympathizer Season 1 Episode 4, “Give Us Some Good Lines.”] The Sympathizer Episode 4 is one of the best episodes of 2024 so far. The episode breaks form from its previous installments and plants the Captain (Hoa Xuande), a double agent pretending to be loyal to the Southern Vietnamese cause and its CIA allies, on the set of an American-made Vietnam War movie directed by Nikos Damianos (the fourth of Robert Downey Jr.‘s characters). The Captain was hired as the cultural consultant for The Hamlet, a noteworthy section of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. As the man in charge of representing the Vietnamese community, the Captain was in a unique position to both witness the racist depiction of Vietnamese people in this film and do something about it. What resulted in the making of this Apocalypse Now-style movie was a meta commentary that criticizes how Hollywood portrayed the Vietnam War...
- 5/6/2024
- TV Insider
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.