The most interesting series of March – what to watch

This month, producers from the United States contributed to five of the seven series in our selection. This only means that there are more American manufacturers, they understand the audience well and can produce quality samples of products. And also that their video services work more actively, “delivering” products to viewers faster and to a larger area. This is all important and applies not so much to business as to governance: “access” to the electorate is one of the main signs of the possibility of influence. And cinema, as we know, is “the most important form of art.”

For example, it is through cinema that Koreans (as in “Murderer’s Paradox”) conduct a polemic with society about the right to revenge – who has this right? And the Japanese (as in “Silent Service”) are asking themselves and the whole world – is it enough to keep Japan in the black circle of responsibility for mass murders almost a century ago? Through TV series, Americans accustom the society to new social norms, new views on famous people, and prepare for new scientific breakthroughs.

Interesting finds!

Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Mr. & Mrs. Smith)

Show: Amazon PrimeUSA – Great Britain

The not too high rating of the series (6.9) is due to the disappointment of viewers who did not see a copy of the film of the same name with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. However, the duet of Donald Glover and Maya Erskine creates something new and interesting, where the organic relationship between the characters – an African American and a Japanese American – is not obvious, investing in the genre of sitcoms. The action here, although present in every series, is not clean, with comic notes, thus emphasizing the funny frivolity of the situation.

A pair of contract killers working for a mysterious “intelligence” organization is made up as a requirement of the job, but eventually becomes real, with typical couple sex, carpet selection, a trip to the resort and arguments. Figuring out the relationship metaphorically and realistically turns into the use of force, weapons and the desire to kill each other. Everything is like everyone else’s. Only with the use of pistols, rifles and assault rifles. And, from time to time, corpses that need to be sprayed and buried. The highlight in each of the 8 series is the presence of stars in episodic roles – John Turturro, Paul Dano, Ron Perlman and others.

Good!

A Killer Paradox

Show: NetflixSouth Korea

A melancholic student, do-it-yourself worker and loser in a random night fight, fights back and kills the attacker. And in a few days, the police find out that the murdered person is the serial killer himself. It would be possible to make a film or a series like “Crime and Punishment” from this. But it’s so simple – it’s not about Koreans.

The hero suffers wildly and goes through five stages of self-denial-acceptance, only to accidentally kill again a few days later. And he kills the killer again!.. Such a plot twist in itself is original, without relying on anything else. But the Koreans go even further, building a line like the famous series of films of the 70s “Death Thirst” with Charles Bronson, while intertwining thriller with mysticism.

“There is such a thing – fate, it is called, – says one of the heroes. – Some people happen to cross“. But they intersect due to the specific feeling of a student who is able to “hear” killers. Additional, familiar to Koreans, are the themes of the responsibility of the police and the state, and the meaning of each person’s life. “People are not just victims or attackers, they are also just people.”

Very!

Halo – 2 (Hello)

Show: Paramount+, USA

At one time, the series “Battlecruiser “Galaxy” passed the throne of the genre of “space opera” to the series “Expansion”, but after its end, the genre desperately needs an heir, and “Halo” makes its claims. There is not without a bad sheep here – there is pathos and modern propaganda. On pity.

But pathetic speeches and social issues, fortunately, are not the main thing in it. The main thing is the intricacies of the plot, similar to “…Galaxy”, where the Covenant race at any cost wants to find mysterious artifacts, the keys to the heavenly world, and at the same time destroy the human race. The Marine and Spartan Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber, “American Gods”) is in a surprising juxtaposition – he is the strongest of the Marines and poses a real threat to the aggressor race, but he cannot be killed because he has a mystical connection to the artifacts. The creators of “Halo” do not raise the intellectual level of the series too much, keeping it within the requirements of the computer game of the same name, and the battles between humans and aliens look like epic fiction.

Within the genre, it is interesting and exciting. What needed to be proven.

Quiet service (The Silent Service)

Show: Amazon Prime, Japan

One of the most unexpected series created on the basis of a manga and bought by an American streaming service (despite the fact that the US is the aggressor in the plot).

A nuclear submarine of a new generation, secretly built by the Japanese and Americans, is cunningly stolen by the Japanese, who have not had the right to have nuclear boats, let alone nuclear weapons, since the post-war period. But the captain makes a “horse move”, declares the boat the territory of a new country and offers to conclude a treaty with Japan. The US wants to destroy the boat, but there is a danger that there are nuclear warheads on board.

A certain naivety of the series is outweighed by the serious work of the director and high-quality special effects. And the military-political tension is noticeable, brought out almost as one of the main problems, indicated in the series by the criticism of the USA about its “look of the world gendarme”. And this is now, when the world aggressor is actually Russia, and potentially China! If we omit this inappropriateness, which is understandable on our part, then it remains to pay attention to the obvious originality of the story – here they are blackmailing to achieve peace, not to start a war.

A New Look (The New Look)

Show: Apple TV+, USA

This is a truly fresh look at the French fashion establishment of World War II – Christian Dior, Coco Chanel, Lucien Lelong and other French fashion designers who collaborated with the Nazis during the occupation.

But how did they cooperate? Someone sewed a dress for festive celebrations, someone, like Dior, sought to save his sister from the clutches of the SS, bribing both the Germans and the French, and Coco was ready to try to end the war, fulfilling the task of Walter Schellenberg, SS Brigadeführer and head of German military intelligence – to meet in Madrid with Churchill in 1943, and agree on an armistice.

The chaos of the situation, the horror of war and a somewhat different than usual, un-French side of the French – with cruelty and double standards – this is “New Look”, a 10-episode series that will end at the beginning of April. Beautiful roles of Ben Mendelsohn (Dior) and John Malkovich (Lelong), but the main, brilliant, role of Juliette Binoche (Chanel). She plays a hot-tempered, hysterical, fiery woman, full of energy and charm, able to ignite both young beauties and experienced officers.

Brand new!

Constellation (Constellation)

Show: Apple TV+, USA – Great Britain – France

One of the rarest examples of modern serialization in the science fiction genre. There is no pathos here (as in “Foundation”), no rumination (as in “Lost in Space”), so that everyone understands everything.

The story of the 8-episode “Constellation” concerns astronaut Jo Eriksson (Noomi Rapace, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”), who spent a year in space in orbit, managed to survive an accident on the International Space Station, and return to Earth. But she returned somewhat different. And now the point is for her to find out for herself – did she see hallucinations earlier in space and now on Earth, or are they not hallucinations at all?

Based on scientific theories about an elementary particle that manifests itself only when someone looks at it, the series balances between the drama of an individual and mystical, mysterious fiction. Departing from the theorization of pure science, as was the case in the 1990 film “Dispute”, the creators focused on specific issues from the life of a person who was influenced by space. And the answers are not that simple, if at all possible.

Difficult, but insanely intriguing!

Shogun (Shogun)

Show: Hulu/FX/Disney+, USA

1600 AD English Protestant John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis, “Sharp Cartouches”) sails to Japan, simultaneously with the team “cleansing” all Catholic settlements. He wants to do the same on the “barbaric” islands, in his opinion, where there are Catholics and barbarians. However, he falls right into the complex, cunning and long game of the local prince Yoshi Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), who will soon become the future shogun, and will ensure his kind’s longest reign in Japan for almost 300 years to come (in fact, we are talking about the Tokugawa family).

This is the second TV series adaptation of the best-selling book of the same name by James Clavell, a prisoner of war during the Second World War in a Japanese camp on the island of Java. But this screen adaptation is as large-scale and objective as the book itself, rated in the 80s as a “virtual encyclopedia of Japanese history and culture.” Visually expensive, dramaturgically and beautifully staged in detail, “Shogun” objectively and painfully shows the problems of the past, where the question of barbarism is us or them? – a question of civilization.

Polemical, but worth attention!

If you haven’t had enough, there is more to offer. The 6th season of the British documentary series “Formula 1. Women to survive”Season 1 of the Japanese “Ninja Kimui” for anime lovers, the 2nd season of the American crime drama “Tokyo Police” and the debut South African serial killer thriller “Catch My Killer”.