Look closely at HBO’s The Sympathizer, and you’ll see just how thoroughly—in ways both direct and subtle—director Park Chan-wook emphasizes his protagonist’s conflicting identities through visuals. It’s in the shadows that follow him and the positioning of characters around him, the logo of a liquor store and the structure of a modest Los Angeles home. The show’s dynamic imagery finds the Captain (Hoa Xuande) constantly haunted by his own deceit, putting one foot in front of the other to simply survive—and not get found out.
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This is the story that the limited series tells in its provocative, time-hopping scripts, too. Adapted from Viet Thanh Nguyen’s ‘70s-set novel, The Sympathizer centers on a young Vietnamese refugee who follows a Saigon General (Toan Le) to Los Angeles following the end of the war, while secretly operating as a spy for the communist North Vietnamese. His attempts to maintain this double-crossing life form the backbone of a darkly funny, thematically rigorous exploration of assimilation and storytelling, puncturing a classic spy-thriller structure through his fresh, complex perspective.
Known for his genre-bending work in film, Park served as co-showrunner on the whole series with screenwriter Don McKellar, but also directed the first three episodes to establish The Sympathizer’s vibrant, singular visual template, reuniting with his Decision to Leave cinematographer Kim Ji-yong. With their three episodes all now streaming on Max, the pair joined Vanity Fair over Zoom to break down six pivotal images and how they reflect their careful, ambitious overall cinematic approach.
The Two Captains
We meet the Captain in South Vietnam at the end of the war, caught in the crosshairs as his Saigon colleagues and CIA contact are closing in on a communist spy—with whom the Captain has been secretly collaborating. This frame captures him in the midst of a dizzying attempt to frame the spy with video footage, while preserving his own double-agent cover.
Kim Ji-yong: This visually shows the Captain’s conflicted characteristics. It starts from really bright, sunny outside and comes into a dark area. We see his shadows, these shadow patterns, on him, and he goes quite dark toward the end of the staircase. The camera tilts up to his reflection. These are the characteristics of a spy. The camera also has a kind of surveilling feel to it. We scouted this location a few months before we actually started to shoot and we just instantly liked it. We wanted something in a staircase and the production designer suggested to us that we add this mirror to the shot. So we actually tilt up, or pan up, to his reflection to finish the shot.
Park Chan-wook: If I remember correctly, it was actually you, Ji-yong, who suggested we put up the mirror here.
Kim: That was a good choice then. [Laughs]
Park: We lit it to actually reenact that shadow pattern—and while we never intended to do this, if I see it now, I see actually Roman alphabet [spelling of] S-I-X, the number. The pattern you’re seeing is coming off of the handrail that is on the right side of the screen. The top of the wall on the right side of the screen is higher than the wall itself—you don’t see it because it’s cropped out and we’re getting the light from up above, slightly slanted, and shooting downwards.
It was important to play with the shadow of the Captain. Story-wise, he is the one who ordered his subordinates to go and capture this communist spy—so he’s the reason why they’re going after her—and he’s the one who is actually delaying this process so they won’t capture her. He’s in a dilemma where he can’t let them get her, because he’s afraid that the communist spy will tell on him. He’s actually intentionally climbing up the stairs very slowly, thinking about what to do at this very moment. In the early part of the shot, the camera is looking down through the image that we see of his shadow, and as he climbs up the stairs and as the camera tilts up through the image, we see the reflection against the mirror—those two images closing in. We tried to play with contrast in order to show this split image, the dichotomy that is happening within the Captain.
Father Figures
In the pilot, after the spy is captured, the Captain is forced to watch her being tortured in a theatrical setting, seated alongside the General and the CIA Agent, Claude (Robert Downey Jr.). Park and Kim blocked the scene so that these two powerful men can’t see the anguish being experienced by the Captain—but we the audience can.
Kim: The Captain can hide his emotions by the way he sits, how he finds his position between them.
Park: He has complex emotions within him. It is fear and it is rage. The rage he’s feeling against the two people sitting behind him. In terms of fear, he’s afraid that the communist spy will reveal his identity. We have Claude and the General on one side, the captured communist spy on the other side, and the Captain is between them. He is able to hide his face against Claude and the General, whereas we, the audience, are able to read his expression. It is exposed to us.
Frame left, we have Claude who actually represents the Captain’s American side. He plays a mentor figure. Frame right, we have the Vietnamese side in the General. These two figures are both patriarch figures to him. And while the Captain hates both of them, at the same time there’s a love/hate relationship with the both of them. He is yearning to receive respect from both of them. There’s a complex relationship happening, and that is why we have this symmetry playing within this shot.
America the Not-So-Beautiful
Under the General’s continued command, the Captain travels the United States in the second episode on the road to Los Angeles—from a harrowing refugee camp in Arkansas to this stopover in Texas. The episode introduces The Sympathizer’s version of the U.S. through the Captain’s eyes, never more clearly than in this quiet, alienating shot.
Kim: For our captain who comes to America, and the refugees as a whole, this is a strange foreign land that they’re coming across. I paid particular attention to that idea. I found it interesting to have this Asian in the foreground against these quintessential Americana images in the background. This is 1975 Texas panhandle, and to have this Asian guy appear in the countryside of America, it’s also a moment where we, as the audience, are being introduced to America through his eyes. So we see it in a different way. We have a montage sequence playing just before this moment, and what we tried to do was present this idea of America being not quote-unquote “beautiful,” per se.
Park: If you remember [from the first episode], the Captain actually convinces the General’s daughter, Lana, to come to America; she prefers to go to Paris instead. He convinces her that America is a beautiful land. Now he comes over here and we come to see that it’s actually not as beautiful as he has presented it.
California Dreaming
When The Sympathizer reaches California in the back half of episode two, Park and Kim reveal their standard color palette, a deftly hazy take on L.A. sunshine that still emphasizes the city’s dry, blue skies. Here we see Lana and her mother taking in the brightness for the first time, captured in cooler tones that defy convention.
Kim: This is an extension of what we’d discussed earlier for the previous shot, in the sense that we wanted to show these refugees’ first impression of L.A. Me being an outsider, Director Park being an outsider, we can actually enhance this idea of showing the outsider’s perspective of looking at this America. This image also came out nicely in the sense that the color resembles that of a 1970s shot, a ‘70s film.
Park: That’s thanks to the sunlight that we had on that particular day and the atmosphere that all came together. Needless to say, too, that costume and makeup and the background car all came in one [cohesive] piece to create this mood. It is really hard to define specifically what the 1970 aesthetic is, but just like what Ji-yong said, yes, I did feel that way for this particular shot. This made me think of why people back then came over here in California—and Hollywood in particular for American filmmakers, why they chose to come here to shoot films. I remember thinking that distinctly, capturing this image.
Kim: Earlier on in discussing our look for the show, director Park and I discussed how to go about presenting this L.A. through the eyes of the outsider. We wanted to really portray L.A. in a different light that we have seen in film and TV up until now. We wanted to make it cooler in terms of the color temperature, and we also discussed how to stay away and avoid the very strong sunlight, which is a distinct characteristic of L.A. It turns out it was nearly impossible to do that. [Laughs] But if you watch The Sympathizer, you’ll see how we went about avoiding a glamorous look.
Park: Usually, when we talk about a 1970s look, there’s a warmth in its tone, inspiring this nostalgia, but we actually wanted to avoid creating this nostalgia, because the period that we were portraying was something that you actually don’t want to go back to. It’s really cruel and the people are struggling and it’s grounded in reality. That was the period that we were trying to portray. I was fond of this very dry, almost crispy look. I was quite happy with what we got.
Kim: I’d like to add that, usually when people shoot in California, we backlight so that people will be against the sunlight. But we intentionally shot this front-lit. That’s one of the differences that you’ll see in our show.
An American Dream Meets Reality
The General opens a liquor store in his transition to civilian American life, but the name alone—“Yellow Flag Spirits,” paying homage to the South Vietnamese colors—inflames tensions in the community, as does a logo implying a close American allegiance. Here we see him enraged by graffiti that calls out exactly that implication, referencing the brutality of the Saigon regime. We take in these complex, provocative images along with the conflicted Captain, meeting the General’s fury.
Kim: Before we went into shooting, when we were designing the shot list, we actually talked about covering this scene very in a conventional method. But once we got to the shot, and we saw the wall and especially the graffiti, Director Park and I talked about covering this in a slightly different, unconventional way, through the Captain’s eyes.
Park: This painting, as a whole, is a very important part of our storytelling. Not only in the official painting that is drawn for the liquor store, but also the graffiti that someone came by and drew on top of it. The name Yellow Flag represents South Vietnam, and it is named by the General who is fond of his country. We have this American flag and South Vietnamese flag crossing each other, which will become a very important story motif—in that it will be repeated later on. We will see a congressman wearing a pin with the two flags on his suit.
This image in particular is referencing something very infamous, based on a photograph that had a great effect in communicating the immorality of the South Vietnamese government. It has a tremendous effect in terms of its propaganda, this picture of a Saigon execution. Our General interprets this graffiti as someone trying to use it to discredit his image. That’s why he’s inflamed here.
An Execution, in Two Stories
The show-stopping sequence of episode three finds the Captain mapping out the execution of the Major (Phanxinê) after falsely identifying him as the mole to the General, in order to preserve his own life. Park and Kim capture the murder from a brutally cold distance, emphasizing the whole of the Major’s residence, with his mother aimlessly going about her evening up above as the unfathomable occurs just underneath.
Kim: This is one frame of a very long take.
Park: Ji-yong and I were talking about how to shoot this assassination of the crapulent Major, and we arrived at a conclusion where we don’t need to actually go about it as an action sequence, as you’d see in a genre film. It’s not about the thrill that you get from the action in our show. What we wanted to portray was this idea of the Captain not wanting to kill the guy, but he has to in this situation that he’s forced himself into—and also the guilt that he feels because he’s the one who pointed out that the crapulent Major is the spy, to save himself
Kim: This is a sequence we figured out when we actually went to location scouting and saw the two floors. We wanted to play with this idea of having tragedy and comedy play out at the same time.
Park: And we wanted to play against this idea of it, like you would normally see in a James Bond spy film where our protagonist is invincible. We wanted a Captain who is awkward, who is powerless, and who can’t do anything right at this particular moment. We wanted to play the absurdity of the situation that he’s forced into. He can’t do it one way or the other. We see the Major’s mother upstairs. The audience sees this with the right amount of proper distance. We see this whole situation played out very objectively.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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