2019 TV series Jack Ryan tops China's review platform Douban's trending chart on January 4, 2026. Photo: Screenshot from Douban

Following the US forcible seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, storylines from the 2019 spy series Jack Ryan that appear to mirror real-world events have drawn widespread attention from Chinese netizens, who described the show as "prophetic."

Season II of Jack Ryan topped China's review platform Douban's trending chart on Sunday, while becoming a trending topic on China's social media platform Sina Weibo. Discussions and viewership of the series continued to grow in the past few days. 

One particular scene - five CIA agents landing by helicopter at the Venezuelan presidential palace and opening fire - bears a striking resemblance to real-world events in US military intervention in Venezuela on January 3, 2026, a Chinese film influencer wrote in a post on China's social media platform Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote) on Monday.

The show's rating on Douban rose from 6.3 to 6.9 as of the post. As of press time, the second season holds a Douban rating of 7.9.

The Global Times noticed many new short reviews on Douban, left in recent days, gave the work a five-star for its surprising resemblance to, or prophecy of, the reality.  

"Now this is what you call a masterpiece - a true prophet," one user commented. "How did it go from magic realism to a documentary?" another wrote.

A netizen dug up screenshots of Douban reviews from November 2019 and reposted them in Sina Weibo comment sections. One low-rated two-star comment read: "The plot is way too far-fetched, especially the part where five CIA agents land by helicopter at the Venezuelan presidential palace and start killing..."

"Reality is even more outrageous than the show," another Chinese netizen remarked in the Xiaohongshu comment section.

"If not for the recent international events, I wouldn't have even known such a US series existed. This kind of coincidence really struck me," Wan Ruo, a Chinese viewer, told the Global Times. Drawn by the buzz, she finished watching both the first and second seasons within three days.

"I think the show has strong visual quality, but I find it increasingly difficult to empathize with these 'world police'-style hero figures," Wan said.  

Outside China, an Instagram reel titled "Venezuela explained," which features a short clip from the series, has been viewed nearly 40 million times in the past two days, though it has also been copied and shared widely across other social media accounts, reported CBC News.

The scene - from the first episode of Jack Ryan's second season in 2019 - depicts the famed spy, telling an audience of university students why a faltering Venezuela may be more of a security risk to the US than countries including Russia and China, the report said.

A number of users described the clip as "prophetic," CNN reported, as overseas netizens are similarly shocked.

"Watched it before Maduro's abduction and I was shocked at how real it played out," wrote one comment. Others noted it was not "play out" but propaganda that created the current situation, and called it "shameful" or "insanity."

CBC said that the scripting of Ryan's lecture is based somewhat on what was happening in Venezuela at the time. But it now has people wondering if it perhaps foretold the current, real-world situation.

"What always surprises you as a storyteller is how often real-world events catch up to fiction," the show's co-creator Carlton Cuse told Deadline, an entertainment news website, in an interview published on Sunday. "The goal of that season wasn't prophecy - it was plausibility. When you ground a story in real geopolitical dynamics, reality has a way of making it rhyme."