Pod prikritie

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.

Personally I like the show very much. The main character Martin/Zahariev is great looking guy, very well chosen for the role and yet he leaves me frustrated because he has such a good appearance but very poor acting skills. I believe with some help he can improve though.Sunny is no good sorry is devastating how stiff she is. Djaro/Bilalov on the other hand is great I've never thought it's possible. If this was an American show he can be most definitely considered for Emmy nomination. As for Ivo/Baharov...well I can't think of anything bad to say for him either! He is sexy, bad...every woman's fantasy. His acting is very convincing. When a bad character makes you root for him that definitely means he's doing his job very well. Popov, Kosuma, Kukata are also great characters in the show, very memorable. As for the story I would not change a bit of it. Every Bulgarian knows that's like a true story. I sure hope that more people will be able to see it in the future. I can't wait for the 3th season!

The series are great. The plot, the conception, everything. Except one HUGE thing.

The main character is portrayed by an actor that clearly doesn't even look like a criminal or act like one. That baby face, that ridiculously bad acting and that lack of realness in his character kills a big part of the whole idea. They should have switched him for Zdravko "Kosam" Kiselov actor (Alexander Sano). It would have been a perfect 10 !

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.

/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.