Undercover

There is a scene in the sixth episode of the first season where the character 'Ivo' is explaining to his boss, the seasoned mafia don 'Djaro', the step-by-step procedures of the preparation for a daring heist that is worth millions. The scene is set in a gymnasium hall with large mat in the middle used for martial arts practice. As 'Ivo' is sitting down on a chair just by the mat, 'Djaro' disapprovingly looks at his shoes which are partly resting on it. 'Ivo' duly takes his feet off the mat. Why is this significant, you may ask? Well, it doesn't contribute much to the plot, but what it is, is a nod from the director: 'I know what I'm doing'. The beauty is in the detail and in nearly every scene in Pod Prikritie, there is something which functions to make it memorable, whether it be the camera angle/positioning, the lighting, the set, or a simple gesture by one of the actors. All the while, the brilliant score provides the necessary emotional backdrop against which the characters' sentiments can be played out.

A few of the reviews here take a highly critical approach towards this series, without providing much evidence to justify it. Pod Prikritie deserves so much more than this intellectual myopia. For starters, the acting, with perhaps one single exception, is marvellous. For me personally, the jewel in the crown is Mihail Bilalov who is simply magnificent in the role of 'Djaro' - Pod Prikritie's primary antagonist. Think of him as a more menacing, less humorous version of Jack Nicholson's character 'Frank Costello' from The Departed. From his facial expressions to his body language, he is a master of his role and creates a character who is both believable as a human being and as the emblematic face of Bulgarian mafia.

Pod Prikritie's realism is undisputed, and as much as that is a compliment, it is also ironically the point of contention for most Bulgarians. They know this reality; they see it on a daily basis. So why watch it on TV as well? That said, many of the characters have gathered a cult following, while quite a few of their lines have entered the standard Bulgarian lingo.

Coming back to The Departed, Pod Prikritie has often been compared to Scorsese's Oscar-winning crime feature. In many ways it is better: less stylized and more convincing. It is hardly surprising that so many foreign distributors have expressed a genuine interest in showing it in other countries. No doubt, the universal appeal of the crime genre always helps, but Pod Prikritie is as good a representative of it as any production you can think of, be it on the silver screen or on television.

/refers to all 5 seasons successively/

I had kept tab on this Series for some time, but was unable to find the seasons with subtitles in a language I know... Finally it was possible and a some months ago I began my journey in a post-Socialist country with several big issues, like corruption, gangs, money laundering, etc., and having read articles about Bulgaria, those issues remain still, although their extent is now smaller...

Thus, I could delve into harsh realism with less hopes and more hopelessness, together with authentic environment and performances of actors and actresses I was totally unaware of. The latter usually does not enable me to promptly enjoy the events, but Pod Prikritie was a different matter - in spite of cruelty and prevailing negativity, it was catchy to follow how very deep antipodes (love-hate, loyalty-betrayal, violence-serenity, etc.) we depicted and how they changed even in a course of a season.

As it tends to be in such series, the bad seem more colourful and the females less visible and less versatile, but there are several pleasant exceptions here. True, my favourites are Zahary Baharov as Ivo Andonov, Mihail Bilalov as Petar Tudzharov / Dzharo and Marian Valev as Rosen Gatzov / The Hook -- all generally negative heroes, but, as typical to good and versatile series, there was no plain approach totally good vs. Totally bad. Well, a certain death in Season 4 and a shift in title meaning in Season 5 was apparently not to everybody´s liking, but I still watched the Series to the very end without wtf! Feelings and did not ponder too much on the potential alternatives for the "closure".

All in all, a really good Series, and 1 additional point for the country of origin.

UPDATE April 2013: Season 1 - WITH English SUBS - is Now Available on YouTube. Just search "Pod Prikritie English subtitiles."

I consider Pod Prikritie, Season 1, to be as good as anything ever produced for TV anywhere in the world.

The show's original writing team (T. Vasileva and G. Ivanov) impress in Season 1 with creating fascinating characters, setting up the major conflicts and intricate story lines within the Bulgarian Mafia underworld.

The story, as the title ("Undercover") suggests, is about a cop who infiltrates an underworld organization. Yes, it's been done before, most recently in "The Departed", which was itself a Hollywood remake of a Hong Kong movie. The twist here is, well, it's a social commentary disguised as a TV series about the Bulgarian mafia.

The actors are all top notch. One actor's performance in particular stands out as a tour-de-force. Not enough can be said about the brilliant Mihail Bilalov, as the sociopath/crime boss "Jaro" (Peter Todjarov), who dominates throughout Season 1. It would be an understatement to say that he steals every scene.

Bilalov's Jaro is that rare performance that reminds one of the power of Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs". In fact, if Hannibal Lecter was a Bulgarian crime boss, he might have been somebody much like Jaro. Only, he would be cannibalizing an entire society.

(As an interesting bit of trivia, Mihail Bilalov only recently resurrected his acting career. Previously, he had given up acting for the past 20 years and worked as a landscape architect in France.)

The directors of the series have done a great job of getting the story on film with impressive visual flare. There is plenty of heart-pounding action, poignant drama, sex, forbidden romance, black comedy and nerve-rattling suspense.

The series, which is filmed in Bulgaria, has the production values one usually sees only in major Hollywood studio productions. At the moment (January 2013), Pod Prikritie (Undercover) is only available on Bulgarian TV or on the internet (without English subtitles).

Pod Prikritie has universal qualities and it will definitely appeal to international audiences. The series has been bought by an American company (New Films International) and, hopefully, will eventually be distributed in other markets.

I would not be surprised if this show ends up getting remade by Hollywood one day.

In conclusion...

Season 1 is brilliant. (I attribute this fact most of all to the original writing team. Watch the pilot of the series for a master-class demonstration of how to set up a gripping story and introduce unforgettable characters.)

Season 2 is... well, still very good. (Although, one can see that the series has lost the brilliance of Season 1. Hint, the original writers - Vasileva & Ivanov - moved on to work on a different show and were replaced by other screenwriters.)

Season 3 is... unfortunately, a rather mediocre type of affair. Gone is the sophistication of the story lines and characters. Even the great Bilalov does not have much to work with here. The writing gets better around mid-season, but it's obvious that the whole production has failed to sustain the high standards of Season 1 and Season 2... The story lines and the characters are much more "on the nose" and uninspired. (Hint, again, the writing team of Season 2 were replaced by new writers and you can tell.) In Season 3 there is more emphasis on pure action and less on character development and suspense. It actually feels like a different series altogether.

Overall, this is a series worthy of a worldwide audience. My advice is to watch Season 1 & 2 (the story wraps up nicely with Season 2). But beware of potential disappointment with Season 3 and proceed at your own risk.

Mihail Bilalov (Djaro) is the PERFECT actor for a mafia boss. His looks, his manners, his form of speech, there's nothing wrong with how he portrays his character. He's just incredible. So is the rest of the casting crew (with few exceptions). I'm happy that the Bulgarian taxpayer's money are finally going into something worth watching. In the series there are a lot of Bulgarian inside jokes, so I assume it would be slightly harder for international viewers to understand the jokes from time to time. Otherwise the show may not be introducing new things to the genre (is that even possible nowadays?), but it's perfecting on the most important parts. TV series like Breaking Bad have much more higher budgets and their production quality is way better, but Pod Prikritie (Undercover) is still a worthy opponent.

OK, first things first - these TV series are Bulgarian. This is very important, since, even if at some point you are able to find a localized (translated) version, maybe you will understand the plot, but won't be able to feel the movie and re-live (some) of the story. Unless you come from a post-communist Eastern Bloc country.

The plot is a classical gangster action-drama, similar to "The Godfather" or "Brigada". It features nice, realistic, almost fully believable characters - actually, most of the Bulgarians can easily recognize someone they know in the movie characters: Be it the mighty, well-connected boss; or his spectacularly sexy wife; or his lieutenants, fit with the appropriate black SUVs; or maybe the cops, filled with hatred for the world they can't understand. The series don't lack action - on the contrary - in every episode there is some eye-candy: for example a hot pursuit or gun-fight. Not too much, but still enough to take you out of the theater-style in-room-only dialog drama. Actually I love the way it was shot - combined with the intriguing plot it can be considered the best Bulgarian-made production ever.

The only downside of the series is the persistent desire of Bulgarian actors to over-do and over-act and over-pronounce. Especially if compared to a Hollywood-style counterpart, the differences in the acting are just annoying. For example, all the characters use excessively heavy grammar structures and just so perfectly correct pronunciation, even in the most intimate or action-filled parts - which might be applicable to the 8 o'clock news, but simply destroys the credibility of the scene. Leaves you thinking about the bad acting, not the story, not the plot, not the intrigue. This is such a major fault for me, that the movie would get 6/10 if it wasn't Bulgarian. That is some kind of chauvinism - but I believe the otherwise almost flawless "Под прикритие"'s creators should be encouraged to keep up the lovely work.

All in all, if you are Bulgarian, you are going to love it. Otherwise, it is very probable that you will at least enjoy it.