Pod prikritie

UPDATE April 2013: Season 1 - WITH English SUBS - is Now Available on YouTube. Just search "Pod Prikritie English subtitiles."

I consider Pod Prikritie, Season 1, to be as good as anything ever produced for TV anywhere in the world.

The show's original writing team (T. Vasileva and G. Ivanov) impress in Season 1 with creating fascinating characters, setting up the major conflicts and intricate story lines within the Bulgarian Mafia underworld.

The story, as the title ("Undercover") suggests, is about a cop who infiltrates an underworld organization. Yes, it's been done before, most recently in "The Departed", which was itself a Hollywood remake of a Hong Kong movie. The twist here is, well, it's a social commentary disguised as a TV series about the Bulgarian mafia.

The actors are all top notch. One actor's performance in particular stands out as a tour-de-force. Not enough can be said about the brilliant Mihail Bilalov, as the sociopath/crime boss "Jaro" (Peter Todjarov), who dominates throughout Season 1. It would be an understatement to say that he steals every scene.

Bilalov's Jaro is that rare performance that reminds one of the power of Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs". In fact, if Hannibal Lecter was a Bulgarian crime boss, he might have been somebody much like Jaro. Only, he would be cannibalizing an entire society.

(As an interesting bit of trivia, Mihail Bilalov only recently resurrected his acting career. Previously, he had given up acting for the past 20 years and worked as a landscape architect in France.)

The directors of the series have done a great job of getting the story on film with impressive visual flare. There is plenty of heart-pounding action, poignant drama, sex, forbidden romance, black comedy and nerve-rattling suspense.

The series, which is filmed in Bulgaria, has the production values one usually sees only in major Hollywood studio productions. At the moment (January 2013), Pod Prikritie (Undercover) is only available on Bulgarian TV or on the internet (without English subtitles).

Pod Prikritie has universal qualities and it will definitely appeal to international audiences. The series has been bought by an American company (New Films International) and, hopefully, will eventually be distributed in other markets.

I would not be surprised if this show ends up getting remade by Hollywood one day.

In conclusion...

Season 1 is brilliant. (I attribute this fact most of all to the original writing team. Watch the pilot of the series for a master-class demonstration of how to set up a gripping story and introduce unforgettable characters.)

Season 2 is... well, still very good. (Although, one can see that the series has lost the brilliance of Season 1. Hint, the original writers - Vasileva & Ivanov - moved on to work on a different show and were replaced by other screenwriters.)

Season 3 is... unfortunately, a rather mediocre type of affair. Gone is the sophistication of the story lines and characters. Even the great Bilalov does not have much to work with here. The writing gets better around mid-season, but it's obvious that the whole production has failed to sustain the high standards of Season 1 and Season 2... The story lines and the characters are much more "on the nose" and uninspired. (Hint, again, the writing team of Season 2 were replaced by new writers and you can tell.) In Season 3 there is more emphasis on pure action and less on character development and suspense. It actually feels like a different series altogether.

Overall, this is a series worthy of a worldwide audience. My advice is to watch Season 1 & 2 (the story wraps up nicely with Season 2). But beware of potential disappointment with Season 3 and proceed at your own risk.

I've read the other user reviews and I must disagree with those who say that these TV series are bad in any way! The actors are very well suited for their parts and you can see the characters' development along with the evolution of the cast's acting skills. The plot is edgy and well written, with minor flaws, but which movie doesn't have flaws? There are a few actors/actresses who fail to depict a proper character and whose language skills while being a part of their dialogues, are purely awful (Irena Miliankova "Sunny" and Milena Nikolova "Adriana"), but the rest are doing a great job.

The screenplay is extremely close to the world of modern Bulgaria- the political games, the judicial system problems, the corruption, the underground mob hiding behind the dirty world of business, the drug markets... Whoever says this is far away from our reality, is someone who lives in a pink soap bubble and has no real idea about the contemporary world in our country! Even some of the scenes are based on actual events and scandals, involving famous political figures and mob bosses.

I give it a 9/10 because I know it's not perfect, but it still is the best from Bulgarian cinema I've seen since the mid 1990's.

Under cover (Pod prikritie) are a real top world class TV series. The only real problem for it to become hit in other countries is that it's in Bulgarian language. That's not actually something that I consider as "bad".

The plot of the movie is quite classical - there is a mafia organization and there is a cop which is undercover. What makes it really different than other "hollywood" movies is: 1. There is no "absolute" (good or bad) characters. Everybody has his own good and bad characteristics. You can see corrupted cops and corrupted judges on the side of the "good guys" and you can see good sides of people in the mafia side.

2. The connections between the different groups is at a very deep level. The series have a good plot.

3. There is always a surprise! The scenarists are definitely feeling what the audience thinks and they are taking well-balanced notes. They definitely know when one character is exhausted and they know when to take it off (killed).

As a summary - the first season is awesome. Very realistic. The second season is not worse, despite the little moving away from the realism. The third season focused more on the action (shootings, chases, etc). It's definitely for a little bit different audience taste, but again - it's not worse than others. What could make a little bad impression in the third season are the "hidden" advertisements. They are not too "hidden" at all...

It's surprising how the producers managed to keep the top level of the series for such a long time with such a low budget. That's a production which deserves to be watched!

/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.

I have watched all four seasons, thanks my wife for a translate, and I'm impressed! Extraordinary realistic movie! There is no "superman", "batman", vampires, witches and similar bullshits! This show must to receive reward! I know - the situation in ex communist countries is not good, but now I understand why those people are so sad. Because of this movie, I searched more info about Bulgaria, history, culture... Did you know that Bulgaria is one of the oldest countries in Europa? Did you know that Bulgaria invented Cyrillic alphabet? Did you know that "yogurt" is authentic Bulgarian milk? Did you know that PC has been invented by Bulgarian scientist Atanasov? Oh, my God! We thinking those people are stupid! How can so far I have not seen the Bulgarian cinema!