Shadowplay

In response to KkonaW's review about Soviet brutality after the war, I think it's the opposite. The brutality of Soviet is not exaggerated. The brutality of Soviet soldiers is largely overlooked. Japan occupied northeast China for over 30 years but it was the Soviet army that exerted brutal force there - rape and robbery were just their standard practice. But the Chinese Communist Party just looked the other way.

Remember what they did to the Polish resistance? Statin tricked them. Then the Soviet arrested them sent them to Siberia.

It's not stereotyping. It's the reality.

About the show itself, the story of the main character felt very faky. The love story with Claire was really puzzling. His attitude towards Claire was really hard to understand the presumptuous.

The rest of the show was overall good.

I don't get the negative reviews here, yes it's far from perfect, but to say it's about white American saviours is a joke considering it's written by Germans. The show paints a good picture of immediate post war Berlin and the premise kept me glued right through the end.

This show is far from "woke" and it's characters for the most part are well written. I'd much rather see more historical shows with the occasional gaffe than the modern trash we have set in the present day.

It's also nice do have a mix of different languages, so do make sure you have subtitles since about 50% of it isn't in English.

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.

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.

Was surprised to see so many negative reviews and low score so had to leave my thoughts here.

I though this series was very good. In every aspect.

Things that really stood out to me compared to other series:

• amazing opening credits that set the perfect post war film noir vibe

• insane set design, very rich, dense and real. It really felt like huge city that was recently destroyed. I can only think of the eye for detail and money that went into this. Also the use of real explosions and real buildings really amazed me multiple times

• Showing the horror and horrible things people did during and after the war without holding back. There is some serious f'up things that happen in this series but I think it's only fair to show these cruelties in a post war series. If this was a netflix series I'm sure it would've been way softer and not so real.

• Excellent acting. Loved all the actors, German and American. Also loved that they spoke German a lot. All the storylines of each character is really gripping. With the right ise of flashbacks at perfect timings.

• Very well written. The story almost felt like a theatre play in a good way. Small additions to the story like the testimony scenes of the characters with the white light where they talk about something very personal were a beautiful addition and made the story that much denser and more believable

And so much more! I really recommend this series. You can see a lot of work and thought went into every aspect of this. I see a lot of critique of being not historically accurate but I have to disagree. They show the map of Berlin a lot and try to clearly show the different occupied areas and the problems that come with it. Also the upcomming cold war between Russia and America plays a big role in the dynamics of the characters towards the end.

Give this non-Netflix series some support! Would love to see a second season.