[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Sympathizer Season 1 Episode 1, “Death Wish.”]
The first episode of HBO‘s The Sympathizer ends with a harrowing depiction of the fall of Saigon in 1975 Vietnam. Of the many heartbreaking details from the second half of the episode is watching families have to choose who they’ll bring with them on the flights out of the city as they flee to America.
Vietnamese director Phanxinê makes his acting debut as one of the many Southern Vietnamese soldiers who must make this impossible choice. He can only bring his wife and one other family member. When forced to choose who to bring to America between his young daughter and his mother (played by Vietnamese actor Kieu Chinh) to America, he chooses the ladder, opting to leave the girl with her nanny. He tearfully justifies this by saying he and his wife could always “have another kid,” but his mother was irreplaceable.
This choice baffles his mother; as they take a bus to the airfield, she questions why she was chosen over her granddaughter. “Why is your husband bringing me to America in place of his daughter?” she sorrowfully asks. “There is nowhere better than my homeland.”
Countless families had to make similar decisions when the city fell to the Northern Vietnam army that fateful Spring (the fall of Saigon took place from March 4 to April 30, 1975). Phanxinê and Kieu Chinh explain their characters’ heartbreaking decisions to TV Insider, and for Kieu Chinh, this topic is especially personal.
“The decision is a hard decision, but I understand my character because I can relate to [him] in a way that I really love my mom,” Phanxinê explains. “And I think in that situation, I will go for my mother, but I know if that really [was] the real situation, my mom is going to say, ‘No, I don’t want to go.’ She also wants to sacrifice her life for me.”
“Actually, in the early script, my mom said to my wife, ‘Why don’t you just let me stay and bring your daughter?’ And that’s the tragedy of the family,” Phanxinê continues. “They both want to sacrifice for the one they love, but also that makes them be haunted by [the fact that] they are the ones who create this trauma. In those critical moments, the character had to go with one choice. And then the choice you make will make the person you become later. I can relate to that.”
Kieu Chinh is known for The Joy Luck Club and playing Alan Alda‘s romantic interest, Kyung Soon, in M*A*S*H*, but some may not know that she is a Vietnamese refugee herself who fled to America when Saigon fell. She was filming a movie in nearby Singapore at the time. She had already sent her children to live with relatives in Canada by the time she fled.
The Captain (Hoa Xuande) runs to get on the plane during the fall of Saigon in Episode 1 (Hopper Stone / HBO)
“This is a very tough, tough decision for everybody. For anybody who are falling into this circumstances, with the country divided and family torn apart. Leaving or not leaving, staying or not staying — it’s very difficult decision. Some lucky [ones] still stay together, but some unfortunately have [been] separated for the rest of their lives,” Kieu Chinh says of the fate of her character’s family.
“For my own life, my real life, I have been suffering for my family, my father, and my brother and me. We’ve been separated for the rest of our lives. We don’t see each other,” she goes on. “And also for the second time, I became a refugee when Saigon changed with the new regime, then I had to leave the country and leave my loved ones behind, most of my friends behind. Your life changed completely, and it could never be [forgotten]. It is there. It’s your life. I think it’s not only happened to me but to many others as well.”
Kieu Chinh hopes that The Sympathizer, which is one of the only American TV series to feature the Vietnamese language in dialogue, makes viewers stop and think about the lasting impact of war.
“I hope when people see any movie, any TV about war, they would think about it. Think about how lucky they are to live in peace and don’t take [it] for granted,” she says. “Make peace instead of making war. And let us, the universe, unite so that we can have better life with love, with care, and we don’t have suffer, [feel] pain, and lose each other.”
The Sympathizer, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO