The Bridge: Bron/Broen

Bron/Broen simply confirmed Scandinavian dominance in crime drama at the beginning of the 21st century. In certain aspects it surpassed The Killing (Forbrydelsen) and is overall on par with Sherlock.

For some reason all Scandinavian crime dramas and thrillers are bleak and grimy. This is in contract to one of the best living standards in the world and supposed happiness it should bring.

There have been complaints about Sofia Helin's performance. She plays a person that is obviously afflicted with a syndrome or a condition. In that sense, she offers a finest performance, not a lesson in "wooden acting" as it had been implied. In an interview she stated how her inspiration has been a goat, on a level that she follows her instincts.

Kim Bodnia is great and the rest of the crew is above average. Overall, this is a great show.

I haven't seen the Killing yet, but I will. I certainly will if it is as good as this Scandinavian crime drama. The story is very compelling, gripping and brilliantly executed. The acting is first rate, especially that of the two leads Kim Bodnia who plays Martin Rohde and the utterly brilliant Sofia Helin who plays the clever but quirky Saga Noren. I have to say she makes the show for me, alright she is blonde, beautiful and Swedish, but her performance is exceptional and you can't help but love her character. Saga works very well with Martin in trying to solve the crimes and the satellite characters and stories work equally as well. I also have to mention the direction, camera work and general production of this series as it is as good as anything I have seen. I shall be very sad when it finishes.

First of all. It's sad to say, but "Smockan" and "seattle_kid" seems to have COMPLETELY missed the fact that the female police-officer Saga Norén in the series, played by Swedish actress Sofia Helin, is a portrait of a person with Autistic spectrum of Asperger type. And they unfortunately confuse it with bad acting in their reviews. Well, well...

To me that mistake never became a problem. Then again, I am myself a person with a Autistic spectrum of High-functioning type (HFA). A "near cousin" to Asperger. And I was simply stunned. Sofia Helins interpretation of a police-officer with Autistic spectrum of Asperger type was just excellent. Maybe not perfect, but excellent. And it is without a doubt one of the best performances I've ever seen, made by an non-autistic actress/actor. (Watch out, Dustin Hoffman *wink*)

The chemistry between the actress/actor Sofia Helin and Kim Bodnia are excellent as well. I'm actually not going to say anything about the plot itself. It would be wasteful. Just be aware that the female police-officer in the series actually is a person with Autistic spectrum of Asperger type (for less confusion), see the show, and be amazed. I was.

Me, I'm now impatiently waiting for "Bron/Broen 2", which is planned to be aired 2013.

I absolutely loved this series. The story is intriguing from the start: a corpse is found on the bridge between Denmark and Sweden, carefully positioned so that each half is in a different country. The story that evolves from there is satisfactorily complex, without getting silly, and full of suspense. There are a lot of interesting characters in the series, but the stars are the two investigators. Saga Noren, who clearly has a fairly serious Asperger syndrome, mixes an infuriating lack of understanding of people's feelings with an endearing innocence and admirable honesty. Martin Rohde, a more traditional investigator, is a man that often doesn't really think about the consequences of his actions,and is willing to break rules. The relationship between these two provides a lot of interest and plenty of really entertaining moments. Everything is greatabout this series - the story, the ending, the characters, the music,the photography (the night shots of the bridge and the city that are interspersed during the series are mesmerising). More like this please!

A little background: I'm from U.S. and a few years ago, some friends had recommended I watch 'The Pusher' 3 part series, and that was so realistic, so entertaining, that I started following the main actors, see what other films they had done. And recently I'd done a search, and found Kim Bodnia was in this series, so that was main reason for watching it, plus, like many, I'd seen the U.S. version of The Killing and was curious again about Scandanavian movies.

So I read the reviews on here, and obtained and began to watch this series. I immediately liked the police officer played by Sofia Helin, and I presumed she had some sort of autism, tho I don't know enough about it to be sure, and figured maybe it was more an antisocial thing, but after a few episodes it became really appealing, and I've always liked Bodnia's gritty acting and he seemed a good counterpoint to Helin.

It didn't take but one episode to get me caught up in the crime drama, either. It was complex, and I had to go back a few times, and I could see the subtitles were lame at times, but still, when there are subtitles I just depend more on the acting, and it was great.

The violence was there, but not like US movies where it is overdone and become boring and cartoon like, here it was sparse and credible. I found myself truly frightened for the victims, and worried to the last episode over the fate of certain people.

Don't miss this one: I couldn't leave the screen it was so good. And I think myself that some of the role comprised in the US version of The Killing comes from this series, not from the original in Sweden, but the lack of emotion and inability to empathize that the police lady had in this series: well I think that was what the US actress was *trying* to achieve in her role. Watch this series, and then think of the US actress who played the police detective in The Killing.

Great series though,and one of the best crime stories I've seen