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Reviews
Si shi qing chun (2018)
Weird
Somehow this is an anime, but without being an anime. As a cooperation between japanese and chinese studios, this is sort of a weird mixture of chinese story telling in the coat of japanese anime style.
The music is totally fine. Its compelling and it spports the story while being subtle.
But everthing else is uncanney valley. It is a stripped down lite version of anime. I think they made it appealing to the chinese market, because the dialogs resemble the 'in your face' style of chinese dialog. You don't have to think. The characters always tell what they are thinking in monolog and dialog. Also the characters give interpretations of the story itself all the time. In japanese anime there would be 100% more room for the audience to think by themselves. But in this production almost every thing of the narration tells you what to think. It just is boring.
The art style is functionally. I don't know which studio made it. But japanese productions will be more detailed, than this.
The stories themselves are interesting. But the narration techniques are ruining it.
Biohackers (2020)
(season 1 and 2)
The sets are entertaining. The syle is interesting. The actors ar very competent, i think. But after watching both seasons, i definitly can tell the writing is somehow wrong. It is the same problem like other Netflix Germany productions. They all are mini-series. But they all squeeze a plot of 15 episodes into a 6 episode mini format. This is paired with weird german writing style i am familiar from german tv. So the characters sometimes literally have no introduction, they don't develop or they develop too fast. It is really messy. Also many times there are big logical contradictions which destroy immersion. The other things then get you back into immersion. But the weird writing and logical things pull you out again.
And the series always forgets: show, don't tell!
They forget the simplest rule of writing. All the time some character is explaining something directly to the audience.
The Billion Dollar Code (2021)
Well made, exciting narration
This 4 episode series and the making-of special were very interesting. The fact that there is no happy end stands for quality of narration. But the characters were not mad. They developed and overcome the oppression of this big company with its reality altering lawyers. They regained their friendship, or was it never lost? This story was way better, than "How to sell drugs online fast", where an arrogant teenie without empathy was getting international attention for being arrogant and unempathetic.
Tribes of Europa (2021)
Expectations and values complex to manage
My first review was after episode 4. But the last two episodes did a turn. By a total length of 6 episodes a whole third of the production made a difference. After Episode 4 I thoguht this series wouldn't be able to achieve its expectations and premise. But after having watched the whole 6 episodes my opnion changed in some aspects.
This series promised to show off the the fight of european tribes. Therefore i have to make clear that in german language the moon of Jupiter and the continent on earth have the same pronounciation und spelling. All the english natives complaining about the false promise of a space adventure simply didn't get it. There are many languages on this planet. Not only english. So guys. Lets just accept these cultural differences. Europa is the german word for this continent.
The series has a problem of resembling many series. You could name GoT, The 100 and some others. But its innovation is the message of the european idea of diversity, peace and harmony. My critique concerns the argumentation structure. The screenwriters had only 6 episodes to develop an arch, which GoT usually had in 2 seansons of total 20 episodes. Therefore i have to admit that the story has its shining moments.
But there are not enough. The 6 episodes only worked as a pilot or exposition. Also the story promises to communicate european culture. Except for the locations there are many scenes which simply have to much guns and too much violence at all. 50 years after an electricity blackout is a very short time span to develop from the european culture of peace to the brutal culture on screen. It also sort of doesn't make sense at all. Usually american series get away with this because they come from another culture and non-americans are knowing the weird negative aspects of Hollywood productions. Maybe the violent behavior of the characters is necessary to give other characters opportunities to express the european idea of peace and diversity by dialouge and actions. But these moments are too rare. I think this series has an international target audience which is used to the american violent productions. For european standards this is not enough.
And i don't know how Netflix' rating process works. But if this series would be rated by german FSK, it totally would get +18 or adult rating. Public television would even consider it for airing. There are 2 or 3 psychololigally very hard to handle scenes in this production. Sexual abuse and murder of family members. This was very unexpected for me. Netflix rated it for age 16 and therefore my expectations were lower than usually.
Ji qi zhi xue (2017)
This is not what I expected from a Jackie Chan movie
This movie is very different from your other movie in kind of a negative way. Of course it is rated 16 in Europe. The title seems to promise interesting science fiction and action stories. But somehow modern Chinese productions manage to build a frame of pure gun violence. I mean really the simplest kind of gun violence in a frequency that the audience instantly gets epilepsy attacks. And the introduction sequence didn't even finish. I clearly expected a different stile when buying a Jackie Chan branded movie. This is against the values you stood for in the past. Your movies were part of my childhood. This production isn't even recommendable for action lovers.
The Society (2019)
Perfect staging
This show is perfect. Since Game of Thrones i never saw one so well written evil character. Do not watch this in the evening. Watch this at day to reservate yourself the chance for being able to calm down.
Plot: All quality tv ever was created for is in this plot. It has a mystery component. Just about enough to google it, but not enough for getting answers.
Characters: Every character has a well written background. They seem to be realistic for people living outside the USA and knowing enough about the history, sociology, mentality and culture. Every character has its own motives and does things you could identify with.
Suspension: Sadly the show sometimes only can process by creating moments, that could be avoidable. But from a logical argumentation perspective they get away with this by setting up the plot with only teenagers, who are not fully developed rational personalities. If they were, the plot never would have happend like this. But with teenagers it is quite realistic. Also you could argue that never all members of a society could ever be fully developed individuals because not every child and teenager has what a fully developed person had: a sympathetic, understanding, loving but also critical, souvereign thinking familly, friends and general environment. Maybe that is also the whole point this series is about. But there is much more...
Relevance: The show is referencing many things the real society of the USA is having problems with. The show critiseses patriarchy, patriotism, misogyny, judicative methods (processes) and pseudo security. On top the show critcieses nearly every political system. It critises dictatorships, monarchy, anarchy, socialism, communism (yes these two are different) and last but not least it criticises democracy itself. Well done. The show does not dictate the message. You can decide for yourself what things you wish for your society. That's what the title is about.
The show also critices inderectly the actual political situation with the US's "president" in 2020. It also criticises the weapon discourse. The USA as the only region heavily defending their right to allow civil weapons - It is not an easy discussion and everybody has to evaluate the situation for themselves. Therefore the show delivers you many possible pros and cons.
After all this, the show is good. Only two stars for some decision the plot didn't need, but heavily rely on. The writers will know.
Zeit der Geheimnisse (2019)
Can not keep up to its promise
[Edit: watched until the end. Tried to sum up.]
In ordner to make this review without spoilers, this is the only thing i can say. I watched all three episodes and i am not amused. This series thinks, every single human in its audience is so dumb, that it comes up with a total sensless plot. In fact i beleave the plot was written by 14 year old teenagers who naively are building up a crime thriller psycho plot without the key components of these genres.
The series is over explanatory. It does not leave room for interpretation or time and space for thinking about it. 50% of the dialouge consist of names shouted at each other for rembering the dumb audience who is who. Besides that the characters are constantly repeating themselves like a cliche bomb. Its like a story in the head of the already mentioned teenagers - only with more strong language to give it a pseudo contemporary and adult flavor.
Why? The title and the thumbnails, even the short description were promising. The series can not catch up what the marketing promised. It feels like an afternoon tv show for senior audience in german television.