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.

I really enjoyed this series. Yes, the story is complex and I highly recommend to put your smartphone away while watching. We are following the three different detectives literally from lead to lead until the case is solved. A lot of nicely written plot twists happen and only a few of the seem a little forced. The story shows real people in a credible environment acting in plausible ways and yet it keeps you at the edge of your sofa because the photography and the music create a fascinating feeling. The acting is great, especially the main character Maria is portraited beautifully in all her ambiguity by Malgorzata Buczkowska.

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

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 thought that the acting was professional and first rate. It was dark, gloomy, erotic and although thoughtful, it was clever and twisted. More please as must produce another season.