Grey's Anatomy and Killing Eve star Sandra Oh was hand picked for the role of Sofia Mori in HBO's gripping adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer-Prize winning The Sympathizer and it's instantly obvious why.
Oh makes her debut in episode two, delivering Mori's first line with a directness that is both effortlessly charming and confident.
When her white, pot-bellied boss, professor Hammer (one of Robert Downey Jr.'s many roles in this piece) bursts into the room delivering his awkward Japanese in a manner that reeks of appropriation and racism, Mori, the secretary for the college's 'Oriental Studies' department replies: "This is America, if you don't want to speak English, go back to your own country."
It's matter-of-fact, joke-y and deadly serious all at once, giving you a flavour of one aspect of Mori's personality.
As the series progresses, the complex layers of her characterisation open up, revealing her sensuality, her playfulness and her insecurities as she wrestles with identity in the mid-seventies, post the fall of Saigon and in the wake of its aftermath.
She is undeniably magnificent, however, though you might come through the doors for Oh, there's no denying Hoa Xuande is the star of the show. His performance as The Captain is arresting and beautiful.
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The Captain, as he is only known in the show, is a concoction of duality. A double agent appearing to be on the side of the South through his work for the Vietnamese general and their American allies, however he remains devoutly committed to the North Vietnamese army, risking his life to send secret messages back to the communist Viet Cong.
His biracial Vietnamese and French heritage also causes conflicts within, which spill outwards when confronted with racial prejudice.
Xuande manages to draw in the themes of creator Don McKellar and director Park Chan-wook's world to deliver a sensitive, pure, sometimes funny performance. He carries the immeasurable weight of The Sympathizer in a thoughtful, careful way that is absorbing.
This is helped by the voice overs which, as creative choices go, can be dicey.
At best they give you insight to someone's perspective and feelings, at their worst voice overs can feel intrusive, othering themselves from the action as almost a separate entity.
However there's something about Xuande's deliverance of The Captain that gently invites you in further. It feels more intimate. It not only helps the audience understand his thoughts but it piggy-backs you into his world, the experience and the story, making it more emotionally tangible.
Through the chaos and the madness and the unrest both within himself and externally, he very quickly finds a kinship with Mori which develops into an evocative romance.
Oh and Xuande share a chemistry that translates into a relationship that is not only steamy but vulnerable and deep.
Despite its allure, The Sympathizer is no easy watch. To be fully absorbed into the series requires work from the viewer. It's a show that demands your attention in a 'no phones, no absent-mindedly doom-scrolling' kind of way and respect that, because what you get in return is a rich and powerful watch.
Stylistically it is pleasing. Away from the intimacy of the voice over, there's something very cinematic about the show's feel which comes down to the detail.
It's the rolling sound of film tape that precedes the opening scene and a later interrogation which takes place in what is presumably an abandoned cinema - the harsh spotlight bearing down on the captured spy. It's the dated whirring of a VHS tape rewinding back as the show bounces back in time.
The way the events unfold also feels organic. The Sympathizer begins with a roughed-up The Captain, captured and forced to detail the events as he remembers them. As he pens them, those thoughts give way to voice overs that then play out as we see them, but those events jump back and forth in time, reflecting the emotional and mental state of someone recalling the past under duress.
The way The Sympathizer also plays with humour is to be commended. Moments like the The Captain confessing to masturbating with a squid are as straight-up funny as they are crude, intimate and vulnerable when he shares this adolescent faux pas with Mori.
His confronting racial bigotry when asked to publicly detail how his 'opposing dual heritage' makes him who he is, is a brilliant scene.
The Captain responds with a candid, resound cheekiness that plays into what's expected of him. It's utterly sad, witty and amusing the way in which he takes ownership of the moment.
The cleverness of The Sympathizer and the performance of the cast, which is predominantly Asian, is beguiling as it shares a history we thought we knew with new, nuanced perspective.
"In America, it's called the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, it's called the American War," reads the opening title card and The Sympathizer's attempts to get us to engage with that and challenge the media and the west's long-standing depiction of events as well as the complexity of Asian-American identity, do not go in vain.
The Sympathizer is available to watch on Sky Atlantic and NOW in the UK.
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TV writer, Digital Spy Janet completed her Masters degree in Magazine Journalism in 2013 and has continued to grow professionally within the industry ever since. For six years she honed her analytical reviewing skills at the Good Housekeeping institute eventually becoming Acting Head of Food testing. She also freelanced in the field of film and TV journalism from 2013-2020, when she interviewed A-List stars such as Samuel L Jackson, Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. In 2021 she joined Digital Spy as TV writer where she gets to delve into more of what she loves, watching copious amounts of telly all in the name of work. Since taking on the role she has conducted red carpet interviews with the cast of Bridgerton, covered the BAFTAs and been interviewed by BBC Radio and London Live. In her spare time she also moonlights as a published author, the book Gothic Angel.
