Amor real

At last, a 5-star soup opera! I have nothing to say than fully recommend anyone to watch this show.

This +180 chapter "novela" has a great pace, great acting and awesome locations.

Wradrobe is excellent... the Mexico of the early 20th century is portrayed in a very exquisite manner.

This is most beautiful passionate, three-way conflict I have ever seen in a soup opera.

Although I don't speak Spanish, with the aid of close captions and a dictionary I was able to follow much of it. As I tuned in about three quarters of the way through the episodes, I purchased the DVD with English subtitles so that I could fill in the episodes I missed and figure out who was who. Sadly, the DVD was more like watching a one hour season recap of LOST without the explanatory pop ups. Had I not seen the last part in full, I would never had known what was going on. Some characters popped up without any explanation: e.g. the liberated woman who dressed as a man did not appear until she proposed to Renato Piquet (who was Renato anyway?). If only the copious extras had included a full synopsis and character biography list. This show was FAR too good to throw away in a four hour version.

The extras showed the enormous effort which had gone into making the show, the HUGE cast, thousands of period costumes, and a specially built set which would make a "Colonial Mexico" them park. I can only hope that the show will be repeated in full some time in the near future so that I can tape every episode, or that an extended version could be brought out on DVD.

95 episodes, minus commercials and chapter bookends last about 35 minutes each, which adds up to slightly over 55 1/2 hours, which would fit on 10 DVD's, or even 5 double sided.

To get to the story. This show was one of the most spectacular romantic series every. It had everything, beautiful women, handsome men, passionate love, intrigue, scheming, power grabs, gorgeous settings, cheating, star-crossed lovers, family loyalties, family secrets, a revolution - a real feast for the eyes, and for one who lives in the US, a refreshing change to see the way the Mexicans see themselves rather than the caricatures usually portrayed by Hollywood films. I cannot wait to see it shown again.

My only gripe was Matilde's constant snivelling got on my nerves. Not only did she cry enough to fill a bathtub, but the men were at it too. As little Manuelito said to his father, "Men don't cry"! Well they did in this show, by the bucket.

Having recently read Isabel Allende's books about rich powerful families in Latin America, the story attracted me. From the very beginning it kept me captivated. I have even contemplated calling in sick on days I have to work when it's on. Everything seems historically accurate and I am amazed by the amount of detail that was put into this production. It requires a certain level of intelligence to understand some of it. Being that at times they have dialogue in English and French. My family was wondering why French was used so much. The Spanish used in it, it's very nice and slow. It makes it easy to follow, especially for those of us Hispanics born and raise in the US. I'm always having to ask my parents the meaning to different words, this time the roles have been reversed. This novela indeed has a lot of class.

During my teeneage years I was a fan of telenovelas, and I watched many of them. I can say that this telenovela is by far the best in acting, production, music and storyline. No ridiculous acting and comic expressions that can be seen in most of the telenovelas. Adela, Helena, Maurizio, Colunga had their roles of life. Every character is played to perfection. All actors transmitted so many emotions making every other novela a joke comparing to this.

Some said that Matilde (Adela Noriega) cried too much and that is true. It was annoying from time to time.. But she portraied Matilde in such genuine way, very believable.. Not to mention the chemistry between her and Colunga.. So natural and rarely seen in telenovelas...

I have watched this so many times and I enjoy it always as the 1st time I watched it.