Hoa Xuande’s exiled spy is torn between his loyalty to his birth country Vietnam and his secret mission in the US after the end of the Vietnam War in the trailer of Park Chan-wook’s upcoming HBO Max thriller series The Sympathizer, which also features Robert Downey Jr. in a pivotal role.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer follows the story of Xuande’s spy, who escapes to Los Angeles after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and becomes Robert Downey Jr’s protégé. As a sleeper agent in America guided by Robert’s character, Xuande tries to blend in with the crowd and report back to Vietnam. However, the situation escalates when he is identified by a familiar face.

Dropped by the makers on Thursday, the two-minute-31-second-long trailer begins with Xuande introducing himself as a biracial, bilingual man who was a “synthesis of incompatibilities” while living in Vietnam. Scenes shot in Vietnam right after the war are interspersed with Xuande’s arrival in America. “Welcome to spycraft,” Robert says in the video. The camera then pans to Xuande’s spy gaining the trust of ordinary people around him.

But being a ‘man of two faces’ isn’t easy for Xuande as he is forced to decide between his country and America. “Never once did I forget about my mission,” he expresses his inner conflict as a spy after his commander reminds him that they sent him to America to be a mole for them. The trailer ends with a masked man gearing up to perform some experiment on Xuande.

Robert, who recently clinched his first Oscar in the best supporting actor category for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, appears in a never-before-seen avatar in the trailer. In one instance, he is seen sporting a brown blazer while smoking a cigar and in the other, he wears a silk robe while standing in a dojo.

Directed by South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook, known for his films like Oldboy and Lady Vengeance, The Sympathizer also stars Sandra Oh. Fred Nguyen Khan, Toan Le, Vy Le and Alan Trong will be featured in the series as well.

“Near the end of the Vietnam War, a plant who was embedded in the South Vietnam army flees to the United States and takes up residence in a refugee community, where he continues to secretly spy and report back to the Viet Cong,” reads the official synopsis of the series on IMDb.

Nguyen’s novel explores “a life between two worlds”. It revolves around a communist spy embedded in South Vietnam’s army, struggling with loyalty and identity amidst the chaos of the Vietnam War. As he navigates between his espionage duties in America after the war and his sympathies for both sides, he becomes increasingly conflicted.

The Sympathizer will be streaming on HBO Max from April 14 onwards.