When does a war end? When the final shots are fired? When the treaties are signed? When the POWs come home? For The Captain, the nameless, half-Vietnamese, half-French protagonist and narrator of the new HBO limited series “The Sympathizer,” the Vietnam War never really wraps up. It follows him from Saigon to Los Angeles, where he continues his duties as a communist sleeper agent who really likes R&B (especially the Isley Brothers) and sort of digs America in general.
Based on the Pulitzer-winning 2015 novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen and created by Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar, “The Sympathizer” is a story of one young man’s life of absurdity and divided soul — part spy thriller, part dark comedy, but very much its own thing.
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