{"id":28376,"date":"2024-05-06T09:20:21","date_gmt":"2024-05-06T13:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/the-sympathizer-opens-a-counteroffensive-on-vietnam-war-movies\/06\/05\/2024\/"},"modified":"2024-05-06T09:20:21","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T13:20:21","slug":"the-sympathizer-opens-a-counteroffensive-on-vietnam-war-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/entertainment\/the-sympathizer-opens-a-counteroffensive-on-vietnam-war-movies\/06\/05\/2024\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Sympathizer\u2019 Opens a Counteroffensive on Vietnam War Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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(The multiple casting of Downey, by the way, is arguably a visual riff on this history of the movies treating Asians in general, and Vietnamese in particular, as interchangeable: Every aspect of imperialism, it conveys, is the same face in different makeup. But in a series that\u2019s meant to foreground the Vietnamese in their own story, the device is showy and distracting because \u2026 well, it\u2019s a whole lot of Robert Downey Jrs.)<\/p>\n

The Captain volunteers to solve the problem, rounding up a group of Vietnamese expats to fill the extra roles, including his friend Bon (Fred Nguyen Khan), who proves to have a talent for getting killed, repeatedly, in a variety of costumes and makeup.<\/p>\n

But the Captain\u2019s solution introduces its own complications. His refugee extras, who fled the communists, don\u2019t want to play Viet Cong onscreen. \u201cWhy do we make art,\u201d the Captain pleads with them, \u201cif not to explore the full complexity of life?\u201d His speech doesn\u2019t persuade anyone, but an offer of an extra $10 in pay does.<\/p>\n

Park, the director of the relentless and sanguinary \u201cOldboy,\u201d<\/a> is an apt fit for this story, able to both render the thrill of actual action and satirize the absurdity of action moviemaking. (Park and McKellar wrote the fourth episode, which is directed by Fernando Meirelles.) On set, the Captain meets a Korean American actor (played by John Cho), whose r\u00e9sum\u00e9 includes characters of multiple Asian ethnicities who have been beaten to death by Robert Mitchum, stabbed by Ernest Borgnine and shot by Frank Sinatra. An overbearing method actor (David Duchovny) plays his role as a war criminal with disturbing fidelity.<\/p>\n

The episode builds to the movie-within-a-show\u2019s climax, the rape of a village woman whom Nikos has named for the Captain\u2019s mother. Though Nikos considers it a \u201ctribute,\u201d the Captain is appalled. (\u201cYou should be thanking me!\u201d Nikos complains.) It\u2019s too much for the Captain, whom Xuande plays as a man expert at mastering his emotions and his affect. He is fired and breaks up the scene\u2019s shooting, and while leaving the set, he\u2019s injured in a pyrotechnic blast meant to simulate an airstrike against the Vietnamese hamlet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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(The multiple casting of Downey, by the way, is arguably a visual riff on this history of the movies treating Asians in