Never before has a television series garnered so much excitement, attention and concern among California’s expatriate Vietnamese community, the world’s largest, as “The Sympathizer.”
HBO’s seven-part espionage thriller depicting the Vietnam War and its aftermath — or the American War, as seen on the title card that opens the series — premiered Sunday and new episodes will air weekly through May 26. It was co-created by South Korean director Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar, and features Oscar-winning actor Robert Downey Jr. in several roles (he is also an executive producer). “The Sympathizer” is based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, which follows a French Vietnamese communist spy.
The series is groundbreaking for casting actors who are Vietnamese or of Vietnamese descent in lead roles and much of the dialogue is spoken in Vietnamese, though it was made for American audiences. And the opening episode takes place in Vietnam, depicting the fall of Saigon and a harrowing escape on an airstrip.
For a younger generation, the series is an opportunity to showcase Vietnamese stories globally, but for an older generation, “The Sympathizer” has stirred some discontent, especially among those who fought in the war. They point to the show’s lead character, the Captain — a communist spy who infiltrates the South Vietnamese army and follows the General, his boss, to Los Angeles, where they resettle — saying it glorifies the communists, the enemy — by presenting the spy’s disparaging viewpoints about the South.
Such sentiments were among those shared at a viewing party organized by Alan Vo Ford, held at Pink Moon, a Chinese restaurant in Beverly Hills, where the premiere episode was streamed for 30 friends from the Los Angeles and Orange County area on Sunday. Ford, 49, a Westminster resident, real estate broker and film producer of Vietnamese movies such as “A Fragile Flower” and “Journey From the Fall,” said he felt compelled to organize the event because it’s so rare for a major Hollywood series about Vietnamese people to be made.
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“I felt it was my duty as a Vietnamese American to spread the word so the world would know about Vietnam and American history during this historic period of time,” he said. Ford said when he was a baby, his mother held him while “running and dodging bombs during the final days,” just like in the last scenes of the first episode. His father was in a reeducation camp for 9 years, and his family arrived in the U.S. in 1985.
“This is a breakthrough series for the Vietnamese community to be on HBO and work with superstars like Robert Downey Jr.,” said Don Nguyen, 55, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and cybersecurity consultant, who attended the party. He said that as someone who was part of the first generation of Vietnamese to join the U.S. military, he knows what it’s like to break barriers. “It’s a signal to the global community that we’ve arrived in Hollywood.”
“We have many talented doctors, lawyers, engineers [in the community]. But in films we’re still in the infant stage,” he said. He’s the son of Thanh Tuyen, a Vietnamese singer whose trademark Bolero songs were popular during the war.
Despite some of the generational differences, there is agreement in the community that this is a significant moment for Vietnamese representation in Hollywood that furthers their desire for more Vietnamese stories to be told.
And that’s what Viet Thanh Nguyen advocated for, to have the series, like his book, present a Vietnamese point of view on the war. He said that for too long, Hollywood has portrayed “Vietnamese characters to be killed, raped, wounded, silenced, demonized, or rescued while we serve as the backdrop for American moral dilemmas.” The war and its aftermath have been depicted in pop culture largely through an American lens in films such as “Apocalypse Now” and “Rambo.”
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“We should have at least as many Vietnamese perspectives on this war being told as we have American perspectives,” he said.
The cast of the series is predominantly Vietnamese, with Hoa Xuande, an Australian actor of Vietnamese descent, in the lead role as the Captain. Other actors in supporting roles include Kieu Chinh, Toan Le, Fred Nguyen Khan, Vy Le, Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen and Alan Trong.
“This is a historical moment for Vietnamese artists, writers and filmmakers in Hollywood,” said Chinh, an acclaimed Vietnamese actress who plays the mother of the Major (Phanxinê, a Vietnamese filmmaker in his acting debut), a character whose story comes into focus midseason. She knows firsthand what the war was like, having lived through it. The chaotic evacuation scene at the end of the first episode was familiar.
Kieu Chinh, left, with Phanxinê in a scene from “The Sympathizer.”
(Hopper Stone/HBO)
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“I heard loud bomb explosions all around us as we were trying to flee. It was frightening and very emotional,” Chinh said. “During the filming, I just relived my past. I didn’t have to act.”
The actor is well-known for her role as Suyuan Woo in 1993’s “The Joy Luck Club,” an adaptation of Amy Tan’s bestselling novel. It marked the first time that a film featuring a nearly all-Asian cast was a Hollywood box office success. However, despite the film’s success, it did not bring an increase in Asian-centered films or roles for Asian actors then. Chinh said she believes that “The Joy Luck Club” was too early for a breakthrough. Now, she thinks that it is time for a Vietnamese series to be featured on mainstream TV.
Anna Chi, a filmmaker whose work includes “The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu,” worked on “The Joy Luck Club” as a director’s assistant while studying at UCLA’s film school; she attended the viewing party with her husband, Douglas Smith, a visual-effects Oscar winner for “Independence Day.” She agrees with Chinh that “The Joy Luck Club” was ahead of its time. Although progress has been made, Chi said there is still much work to be done for Asian cinema. She sees “The Sympathizer” as an important step toward this goal.
While “The Sympathizer” isn’t the first time a story from a Vietnamese point of view has been told, previous efforts haven’t been as well received because of tensions that have lingered since the war. In January 1994, when Le Ly Hayslip, author of “When Heaven and Earth Changed Places,” visited Orange County on a press tour for the Oliver Stone film based on her memoir, dozens of protesters called her a traitor. It was billed as the first movie about the Vietnam War from a Vietnamese perspective, but anticommunist protesters were incensed that she had aided Viet Cong soldiers.
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The premiere of “The Sympathizer” comes two weeks before the 49th anniversary of the fall of Saigon on April 30, known as Black April or Tháng tư đen in Vietnamese. The Vietnam War, the second longest war in U.S. history, killed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people and American soldiers. For those who fought on the side of the South and were displaced, the wounds from the war remain unhealed.
“Viet sensationalized things to fit the American spy novel and from that perspective, the show is very intriguing to the viewers. He wrote it from the perspective of a Viet Cong communist spy and therefore the South Vietnamese were depicted as corrupted and cruel,” said Quan Nguyen, a physician and director of the Museum of the Republic of Vietnam, a nonprofit in Little Saigon in Orange County. It was opened in 2016 to honor veterans who fought for South Vietnam and to educate future generations.
“This could reopen a lot of deep wounds within our anticommunist community,” says Quan Nguyen, whose father was an army physician.
In “The Sympathizer,” Hoa Xuande plays the Captain, a communist spy in the South Vietnamese army.
(Hopper Stone/SMPSP/Hopper Stone/SMPSP)
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Jenny Thai, 58, a guest at the viewing party who is from Garden Grove, agrees. Thai said it has inspired her to make a film of her own that highlights South Vietnamese heroes. She recalls when she was a child in Vietnam, in the final days of the war, everyone was huddled around the radio and the announcement came that Saigon had fallen, and the adults around her broke down in tears. Weeks later, all the men and women associated with the former regime were sent to reeducation camps. She says her family later escaped Vietnam by boat in 1990.
“Most of the Saigoners stayed home and listened to the radio. It was the only way we could follow what was going on,” says Thai, who has produced short films. “Only a small portion of those who worked with the embassy or with U.S. officers knew about the evacuation.”
She adds, “I’m anticommunist, but I don’t hate the Northerners. We are all Vietnamese; we are all brothers and sisters from the same country. It’s the politics that destroyed us, the war.”
Though there are differing views, “The Sympathizer” has nonetheless spurred conversations about representation in Hollywood, how the story of the war is told and by whom. Ysa Le, executive director of the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association, a nonprofit that co-hosted a “Sympathizer” screening and press meeting with the show’s cast in Orange a week before its debut, says she welcomes the series.
“For the first time, we have so many Vietnamese talents, both in front of and behind the camera working on this American series,” said Le, 53, a pharmacist in Fountain Valley. She was 5 when the war ended, and her father was sent to a reeducation camp for six years after being unable to flee Vietnam.
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“It could inspire aspiring filmmakers to pursue their own projects,” Le said.
Phong Dinh, 91, a former two-term councilman of the seaside resort city of Vung Tau, Vietnam, who spent three years in a reeducation camp, said he understands the antipathy toward the communists, but the spy character created by Viet Thanh Nguyen and depicted in the series doesn’t bother him.
“It was a well-known fact they infiltrated our government since President [Ngo Dinh] Diem’s regime, and continued with President [Nguyen Van] Thieu,” he said. A father of seven, Dinh experienced tragedy after the war, losing his youngest daughter to malaria because no medication was available, and his wife suffered permanent hearing damage from an artillery explosion near their home.
Now a Huntington Beach resident, Dinh joined his youngest son, Viet, former Fox Corp. chief legal officer and U.S. assistant attorney general, to watch the premiere episode. He gave it an A+.
“Our people have suffered immeasurably. I’m blessed to have my family. I want my children and their children to be good citizens, contribute to society in America and help our people,” he said. “If this TV series opens doors for our younger Vietnamese, then it’s worth it.”
“Trying to find your niche as a movie star isn’t easy,” said Frank Scheck in The Hollywood Reporter. Take Glen Powell. A year ago, the Twisters and Anyone but You star was being talked about as possibly the next Tom Cruise. But he “stumbled badly” when he tried to play a macho action hero in November’s remake of The Running Man, and he’s now turned in a second straight box office flop. He took a risk with How to Make a Killing, playing a guy cheated by fate who we’re supposed to root for as he begins murdering off the seven rich relatives standing between him and an enormous inheritance. But c’mon. “Powell is charming, but he’s not that charming.”
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The movie “needed to pick a side,” said Jacob Oller in AV Club. It could have been “a clownish class comedy” or “bitter sociopathic satire,” but it winds up being neither, and “at the center of it all is Powell, making the same face for an hour and 45 minutes, too unflappable to root for, too smug to magnetize as an inhuman American Psycho.” I’m not ready to give up on him, said Nick Schager in the Daily Beast. To me, he and co-star Margaret Qualley, who plays the femme fatale who eggs on the killing spree, come across as “such alluringly nasty delights” that this reworking of the 1949 black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets “ survives its potentially lethal missteps and works on its own limited terms.” Though its teeth aren’t as sharp as they should be, “it’s smart and spiky enough to leave a pleasurably painful mark.”
‘Pillion’
Directed by Harry Lighton (Not rated)
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★★★★
While this gay BDSM rom-com from a rookie director “might sound niche,” said Amy Nicholson in the Los Angeles Times, “free yourself to see it and you’ll discover it’s a universal romance.” Former Harry Potter side figure Harry Melling stars as a shy singleton who’s figuring out what he wants in a relationship when he happens into a submissive-dominant entanglement with a tall, handsome biker played by Alexander Skarsgard. Soon, Melling’s Colin is obeying his lover’s every order, including by shaving himself bald and sleeping like a dog on the floor. But the “kinky-funny” screenplay, which won a prize at Cannes, makes sure we see that Colin is not stuck but growing.
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While the movie’s sex scenes are “refreshingly graphic,” they’re “never used or shock value,” said Odie Henderson in The Boston Globe. “The real shock comes from how emotionally involved the characters become within the construct of their kink.” And when Colin brings his new lover home to meet the parents, Skarsgard and Lesley Sharp, as Colin’s suburban London mom, do memorable work because “neither of them approaches the scene in a way you’d expect.” Until the ending, which “feels a little neat,” said Zachary Barnes in The Wall Street Journal, the movie “proceeds with an assurance of tone that’s especially impressive for a first-time filmmaker handling material like this.” Harry Lighton’s debut “could have been simply shocking, revving its engine in sexed-up style. Instead, Pillion purrs.”
‘Midwinter Break’
Directed by Polly Findlay (PG-13)
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★★
Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds “would be appealing to watch just fumbling for their reading glasses,” said Natalia Winkelman in The New York Times. Unfortunately, this “staid” drama about an aging Irish couple puts that claim to the test. A “slow-moving film with a sappy score and mellow mood,” Midwinter Break opens with Manville’s Stella surprising Hinds’ Gerry by arranging a spur-of-the-moment trip to Amsterdam. Alas, “precious little conflict occurs until long afterward.”
But while Polly Findlay’s adaptation of a Bernard MacLaverty novel is a “delicate” film, said Lindsey Bahr in the Associated Press, its impact can be profound “if you can get on its level.” Stella, a devout Catholic, has an ulterior motive for dragging Gerry abroad, and when she nervously proposes how she’d like to live more purposefully in retirement, “it feels earth-shattering.” This is a couple accustomed to leaving much unsaid, including how the violence of the Troubles led them to flee Belfast years earlier for Scotland. Manville and Hinds give the movie everything they’ve got, said Caryn James in The Hollywood Reporter. In a scene in which Stella pours out her heart to a stranger, “Manville delivers one of her most magnificent performances, which is saying a lot.” Alas, the script lets them down, “not because it needs more action but because this ordinary couple’s problems seem so unsurprising, their inner lives so veiled.”
This story contains spoilers for the pilot of “Marshals.”
When the curtain came down on “Yellowstone” last year, Kayce Dutton had finally found his happily-ever-after.
The youngest son of wealthy rancher John Dutton (Kevin Costner) had secured a modest cabin in a mountainous region where he could reside in secluded peace with his beloved wife, Monica (Kelsey Asbille), and son, Tate (Brecken Merrill), far from the turbulent dysfunction of his family.
“Kayce found his little peace of heaven, getting everything he ever wanted and fought for,” said Luke Grimes, who plays the soft-spoken Dutton in “Yellowstone.”
Grimes reprises the role in CBS’ “Marshals,” which premiered Sunday. But in the new series, Kayce’s serenity has been brutally shattered, forcing him to find a new path forward after an unimaginable tragedy.
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The drama is the first of several planned spinoffs of “Yellowstone,” which became TV’s hottest scripted series during its five-season run. And while some familiar faces return and events unfold against the magnificent backdrop of towering mountains and lush greenery, “Marshals” is definitely not “Yellowstone” 2.0.
Luke Grimes as Kayce Dutton in “Marshals,” which combines the gritty Western flavor of “Yellowstone” with the procedural genre.
(Sonja Flemming / CBS )
In “Marshals,” Kayce joins an elite squad of U.S. Marshals headed by his Navy SEAL teammate Pete Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green). The drama combines two distinct brands — the gritty Western flavor of “Yellowstone” with the procedural genre, a flagship of CBS’ prime-time slate.
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During an interview at an exclusive club in downtown Los Angeles, Grimes expressed excitement about dusting off his cowboy hat and boots, though he admitted to having initial concerns about whether the project was a fit.
“I had never watched a procedural before, so I had to do some homework on what that was,” Grimes said hours before the gala premiere of “Marshals” at the Autry Museum of the American West in Griffith Park. “And I just couldn’t wrap my head around it at first. In the finale, Kayce had ridden off into the sunset. So I thought, ‘Let him be, let him go.’ ”
Those doubts eventually ebbed away.
“To be honest, there was a part of me that didn’t want to let Kayce go just yet,” Grimes said. “Saying goodbye to him was really hard, so the opportunity to keep this going was something I couldn’t pass up. We get to show his backstory and also this other side of him that we didn’t see in ‘Yellowstone.’ ”
But this Kayce is a man in crisis. “Yellowstone” devotees will likely be shocked by the “elephant in the room” — the revelation in the pilot episode that Monica has died of cancer. The couple’s sexy and loving chemistry was a key element in the series while also establishing Grimes as a heartthrob.
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“I think fans will be upset — and they should be,” Grimes said as he looked downward. “Kayce is very upset. It’s the worst thing that could have happened to him. But as much as I’m really upset not to work with Kelsey, it’s a good idea for the show.”
He added, “His dream life is no longer available to him. Now the only thing he has is his son, who is not so sure he wants the same life as Kayce. A big part of the season is Kayce learning how to manage all these new things — new job, being a single father.”
“His dream life is no longer available to him. Now the only thing he has is his son, who is not so sure he wants the same life as Kayce,” said Luke Grimes about his character Kayce.
(Jay L. Clendenin / For The Times)
Executive producer and showrunner Spencer Hudnut (CBS’ “SEAL Team”) acknowledged in a separate interview that viewers may be stunned by the tragedy. “Real life intervenes for Kayce. Unfortunately it happens to so many of us.”
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But he stressed that although Monica is physically gone, her presence will be heavily felt this season.
“She is guiding Kayce, and their relationship is moving forward,” Hudnut said. “His dealing with his inability to confront his grief is a big part of the season. It became clear that something horrible had to happen to put Kayce on a different path.”
As the development evolved, Grimes embraced the procedural concept: “This is a very different show and structure. This is an action show, very fast paced. I meet a lot of fans who say they really want to see Kayce go full Navy SEAL.”
Alumni from “Yellowstone” returning in “Marshals” include Gil Birmingham as tribal Chairman Thomas Rainwater and Mo Brings Plenty as his confidante Mo.
“Yellowstone” co-creator Taylor Sheridan, who had already spearheaded the prequels “1883” and “1923,” will further expand the “Yellowstone” universe later this month with “The Madison,” starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell, about a New York City family living in Montana’s Madison River territory. Later this year, Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser will star in “Dutton Ranch,” reprising their respective “Yellowstone” roles as John Dutton’s volcanic daughter Beth Dutton and her husband, boss ranch hand Rip Wheeler.
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Hudnut said fans of “Yellowstone” will recognize themes that were central to that series: “The cost and consequences of violence, man versus nature, man versus man.”
“We’re trying to tap into what people loved about ‘Yellowstone’ but to tell the story in a different framework,” he said. “The procedural brand is obviously very successful for CBS. And nothing has been bigger than ‘Yellowstone.’ So the challenge is, how do you marry those things?”
Taking on the lead role prompted Grimes to reflect on how “Yellowstone” transformed his life after co-starring roles in films like “American Sniper” and “Fifty Shades of Grey” and playing a vampire in the TV series “True Blood.”
“‘Yellowstone’ changed my life in many, many ways,” he said. “The biggest change is that I now live where we shot the show in Montana. The first time I went there, I would have never thought I would ever live there.
“I would come back to the city after shooting. But a little bit more each year, I felt more out of place here, and more peace and at home there. I’m a big nature person — I never was a big city person, but I had to be here to do what I wanted. But after the third season, my wife and I decided to move there. We wanted to start a family.”
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The topic of a Kayce spinoff kept coming up during the filming of the finale, but “meanwhile we were having a baby, so that was the biggest thing on my plate.”
“‘Yellowstone’ changed my life in many, many ways,” said Luke Grimes.
(Jay L. Clendenin/For The Times)
Grimes was also dealing with the off-screen drama that impacted production due to logistical and creative differences between Costner and Sheridan. Costner, who was the show’s biggest attraction, exited after filming the first part of the final season. His character was killed off.
Asked about the backstage tension, Grimes said, “I just tried to do my job to the best of my ability, and not get caught up in all that. It was sort of frustrating, but I felt lucky to have a job.”
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He recalled getting a call from Sheridan about the plans for a spinoff: “He said, ‘I think you should talk to the guy who is going to be the showrunner. I’m not telling you to do it, and I’m not telling you not to do it. But Spencer is great and he has some good ideas.’ ”
Hudnut said Kayce “was always my favorite character. Also, Luke is not Kayce. Kayce is an amazing character, but Luke is really thoughtful and smart. He is a true artist and has an artist’s soul, while Kayce is kicking down doors and terrorizing people. And Luke has such a great presence. He can do so much with just a look to the camera. He is a true leading man.”
In addition to starring in “Marshals,” Grimes is also an executive producer. He pitched the opening sequence — a flashback showing Kayce in the battlefield. He also performs the song that plays over the final scene, in which he visits his wife’s grave. The ballad is from Grimes’ self-titled country album which was released last year.
“Luke’s creative fingerprints are all over the pilot,” Hudnut said.
Grimes said he does not feel pressure about being the first follow-up from “Yellowstone” to premiere.
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“We’re not trying to make the same show, so no matter what happens, its a win-win,” he said. “I had a blast doing it.”
I am a sucker for all those straight-to-video slasher movies from the 90’s; there was just a certain point where you knew the acting was terrible, however, it made you fall in love. I can definitely remember scanning the video store sections for all the different horror movies I could. All those movies had laughable names and boom mics accidentally getting in the frame. Truckerseems like a child of all those old dreams, because it is.
Let’s get into the review.
Synopsis
When a group of reckless teens cause an accident swroe to never speak of it. The father is reescued by a strange man. from the wreckage and nursed back to health by a mysterious old man. When the group agrees to visit the accident scene, they meet their match from a strange masked trucker and all his toys with revenge on his mind.
Roll on 18 Wheleer
Trucker is what you would imagine: a movie about a psychotic trucker chasing you. We have seen it many, many times. What makes the film so different is its homage to bad movies but good ideas. I don’t mean in a negative way. When you think of a slasher movie, it’s not very complicated; as a matter of fact, it takes five minutes to piece the film together. This is so simple and childlike, and I absolutely love it. Trucker gave us something a little different, not too gory, bad CGI fire, I mean, this is all we old schlock horror fans want. Trucker is the type of film that you expect from a Tubi Original, on speed. However, I would take this over any Tubi Original.
I found some parts that were definitely a shout-out to the slasher humor from all those movies. Another good point that made the film shine was the sets. I guess what I can say is the film is everything Joy Ride should have been. While most modern slashers are trying to recreate the 1980s, the film stands out with its love for those unloved 1990’s horror films. While most see Joyride, you are extremely mistaken, my friend; you will enjoy this film much more.
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In The End
In the end, I enjoyed the entire film. At first, I saw it listed as an action thriller; I was pleasantly surprised, and Trucker pulled at my heart strings, enveloping me in its comfort from a long-forgotten time in horror. It’s a nostalgic blast for me, thinking back to that time, my friends, my youth, and finding my new home. Horror fans are split down the middle: from serial-killer clowns (my side) to elevated horror, where an artist paints a forty-thousand-year-old demon that chases them around an upper-class studio apartment. I say that a lot, but it’s the best way to describe some things.
The entire movie had me cheering while all the people I hated suffered dire consequences for their actions. It’s the same old story done in a way that we rabid fans could drool over, and it worked. In all the bad in the world today, and my only hope for the future is the soon-to-end Terrifier franchise. However, the direction was a recipe to succeed with 40+ year old horror fans like me. I see the film as a hope for tomorrow, leading us into a new era.
