Marco Polo

I have just finished watching episode 9. So many reviews and people have been hating on this series. Honestly, it is seldom that i watch something for nearly 9 hours straight....and this was one of them.

It all starts very slow, but it captures a beautiful and strange world. Its the story of a Venetian explorer who gets caught up in the power struggles of the Mongol empire.

The problem is that people try to compare it with game of thrones. Its not game of thrones, its a different genre, and it feels unfair to compare the two.

The production value is superb, the acting, while not the greatest, it feels right. A movie doesn't need to be a Shakespearean play with lots of drama, as some seem to think.

Honestly, if this series had been released before game of thrones, it would have had a whole different reception, i really do not understand this mentality of people to compare series with others that are entirely different in setting and even budget.

9/10 Make a choice for yourself and ignore the critics on this one. Just the visuals and the portrayal of a mystical and exotic east through the eyes of a European explorer are reason enough for me to look forward to the next season. I personally do wish to see more adventure instead of politics, as this is about Marco Polo the great adventurer after all!

I am appalled at the ignorance of some of the things posted in the boards of this show. I think it's pretty outstanding! The casting is excellent, the attention to history in detail of costumes and culture is awesome and I rather like the fact that Marco Polo himself is more of an observer than a main character...the Mongols, especially Kublai Khan, stealing every single scene! People have bemoaned the "stiffness" of the actors; I can only chalk that up to very little exposure to Asian culture, film or acting! Watch some classic Asian made films and you'll see the acting in this offering is very true to form. As for casting of Chinese as Mongols when they are two very distinctly different ethnic groups,the make-up did a very credible job transforming them into believable Mongols...who are much darker in skin than Chinese, have higher cheekbones, broader faces and a more pronounced slant to the eyes than Chinese as well. The choice to have each group speak in English was a wise business decision. The biggest audience for this is Americans who don't exactly have much patience with subtitles. There was a nice combination of native languages spoken either in the background or as asides that gave one a good flavor of the languages. The attention to detail in costuming was really, really good. And for those worried about historical accuracy...there are almost 150 different editions or versions of The Travels of Marco Polo which is the travelogue "written" (actually spoken to a scribe) by Polo himself. They all have great flights of fantasy and magic and extremely improbable events in them so much so that some scholars have wondered if Polo had ever really been to all the places he claimed to visit, so a few inaccuracies ( like everyone speaking in English) is actually right in line with Polo's original work and actually might have been something the author himself might have appreciated. In short, stop looking for production and script flaws, stop displaying such ignorance about Asian cultures and just sit back and enjoy a darn good-adventure film!

If anything to give it a proper ending. I thought this was a well done series and I would continue watching it. The actors were outstanding the plots good the action sufficient.

Season 1 was perfect and season 2 wasn't far off with the last two episodes in particular being near perfection. It seemed set up so nicely to go from strength to strength in further seasons but alas Netflix decided we deserved no more. Well worth a watch though all the same.

Marco Polo not only met my expectations but exceeded them in every way. It was only on for two seasons but they were a great two seasons. This has to be one of Netflix's most underrated shows ever. I don't know anyone who's seen it that didn't like it. Lorenzo Richelmy is absolutely perfect for this role and does such a terrific job as the lead and Benedict Wong leads a fantastic supporting cast. I'm actually mad at myself for putting it off for as long as I did. If you're a fan of historical action adventure thrillers like myself and you haven't watched this yet then do yourself a favor and go watch it as soon as possible. You won't be disappointed. Just make sure you leave yourself enough time because you're going to want to binge it as fast as you can.