Il principio del piacere

The director manages to pick beautiful shots and the actors do a great job in this thriller series across Eastern Europe. Alas, the storyline is rather convoluted, with many characters and possible culprits. At times it seems the detectives are as confused as the audience, with little coordination or plan.

The excellent internationally famous Czech actor Karl Rodens understated performance in itself would entitle this series to an 8 out of 10 rating and had this series been transduced into 8 Episode instead of 10 Episodes it may well have deserved an 8 . With the story unfolding over 3 different countries and switching back and forth from one country to the other , it became ,partly where which Police Service was where but more importantly which CRIMINALS WERE WHERE . The attractive and talented female lead was putting in a faultless if sometimes following a dubious script , performance and things were going great until they removed the subtitles ( on the All4 UK presentation ) and suddenly I had to become a detective in order to discover what she was saying . . She sounded like she had learned AMERICAN English from watching old MAE WEST MOVIES .

I confess that I was very impressed by this series. Events happen at an accelerated pace, and if the plot is complex, the solutions are always unexpected. Top-notch music, neat photography. One of the best crime series I've ever seen. Ready to watch a second time. The actors are excellent, and convincing to the extreme. A precise image of what the former communist countries have become: a paradise for the mafia, arms trafficking, corruption, prostitution and crimes. A gloomy series as is the reality for many people in Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic. Highly recommended

I watched to the end but didn't really enjoy the series. Terrible dialogue and accents ruined it for me and the plot was hard to follow.

Time again I wouldn't bother.

Well, so many different venues, vast areas, the cast representing Slavs mostly, but still with different attitudes (Ukraine vs. EU, above all). And it budget was not too generous, I suppose... The outcome is a rather suspense thriller series, with interesting main theme, plus some by-lines pleasantly confusing (well, sometimes too excessively, but this is not a big issue). The final outcome could have been more sophisticated, but then - realism is also a good quality vis-a-vis crime series.

The performers are all good and pleasant as well, knowing how to be in teamwork (although many of them are big stars in their countries and even internationally known, e.g. Karel Roden). The latter and Malgorzata Buczkowska were the ones excelling for me a bit, but as mentioned - it is a pleasant cooperation of 4 Central-European countries.

I have read that Season 2 might follow - please count me in as a part of audience then :)