Shadowplay

This is not bad, and no where a propaganda show. Not no where near the others we see today. ilya is obviously upset that Russian's are portrayed for the brutality that they displayed after the war. This is just truth, many of us saw this, even way after the war was over, me personally in West Berlin.

And let us be clear, "They" did not willingly share anything. History, is always told in the perspective of the winners and of whom is telling it. To see the real truth you have to lived it yourself or experienced some of it yourself.

I did. So far this has been decent show and worth the watch. You will need subtitles for it.

The technical facets to this are excellent. The whole look and design is really full of dust and rubble and a vanquished nation. The actors too show their skill and across the various nationalities all hit their marks.

Where the series falters, and often, is the story and plot. The plot is the mechanism and the story is the overall narrative. It has everything thrown into it from fraternal love, psychological cracks, art theft, Cold War espionage,a bizarre female resistance etc . It is so cluttered as to be a mish-mash of of high drama and incredible, story telling.

It may succeed with some audiences but it seems a little desperate, as if they are not quite sure of what they have and have conceived all manner of subplots to keep this thing spinning so you don't notice that it's, well, a bit nonsensical.

In a way its like the dime novels that had a thrill every few pages to keep the reader hooked but when they finished the book they couldn't remember anything.

Ended up quite contrived and I think some of the actors got tired of their roles especially the star. Also had so many story lines I kind of lost track of what was happening. I'm assuming there will be more "Nazi Hunters go to Rome". I'll probably watch but it could have been so much better had the story been more focused.

There's something about Berlin that seems to inspire writers, and this particular series reminds me of another( probably better) police series called Babylon Berlin, although it was set in another era.

The magic of this series lies in the unique way that postwar Berlin is presented. It is a fascinating mix of ruins and decrepitude, shown in stark relief by the way some inhabitants live, particularly the Americans.

Having said that, there are many plots and sub plots the main one being the terrible crimes committed daily on the streets by all nationalities. There is a bit too much going on, so following all the different threads is probably helped by using sub titles.

The brutal nature of the series is I think helped by the engaging leading man. Several people have been critical of him, but I think a really tough guy actor would have turned a lot of people off. Elsie is an engaging character, and Max's brother is a great study in psychopathic behaviour.

It's not an easy watch, but it is an interesting one if you like to see how Berlin became the important city it is today, then this series can only enhance that experience.

Clearly there are a lot of bots on here - so many of the negative reviews either didn't watch beyond the first episode or take issue with the portrayal of the Russian or some other stupid thing that is ultimately unrelated to the show.

This show is fascinating that, while largely in English, Germans speak to one another in German, Russians in Russian etc - for people that aren't fond of foreign language films or subtitles it can take some getting used to, but it is very immersive and a cool take.

The pilot/first episode was slow to me and the weakest of the episodes and ultimately I think the scripts could have been better overall - but I found that as the series progressed I became more and more engaged with the storyline and what was going to happen/what would happen.

To me, each episode is better than the last.

Mala Emde (whom you might recognize from 2019's Charité at War or the 2015 Anne Frank movie "Meine Tochter") is a stand out. Great actress - hope to see more of her in English language films.

Logan Marshall-Green has a great performance - I won't spoil his role here.

Nina Hoss is another standout.

Solid performances by Taylor Kitsch (something about his accent just took me out of the scenes at times - maybes because it is so different than his "normal" accent) Michael C. Hall also had a solid performance but nothing compared to what he brought in those early season of Dexter and at times he comes across as more of a caricature of a guy from 1946 with his accent and appearance.

Really happy to hear that production has already begun on the second half of this limited-series.

Interesting to see where this will lead us.