Brief Story Line
Set in the world where countries were separated into 4 areas in the North, East, West and South by the mysterious and dangerous dark fog called The Fold, Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li) was given an assignment as cartographer in the first army together with her childhood friend Mal Oretsev (Archie Renaux - Gold Digger mini series etc). As they had been very close since the time in orphanage, Alina decided to accompany Mal going through The Fold to avoid separation. However, things took an unexpected turn for her when something happened to Alina that would change her life forever.
Meanwhile, a group of criminals called Dregs led by a casino owner named Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter - Free Rein TV series etc) together with a skilled gun man Jesper (Kit Young) and an agile thief Inej (Amita Suman) found out about a job with large reward. They decided to take this very dangerous job which would require them to cross the Fold into the Little Palace in the North. It was guarded by skillful soldiers called Grisha led by powerful General Kirigan (Ben Barnes - Westworld TV series, Jackie & Ryan etc).
So what would happen to Alina who had to struggle with what happened to her in the Fold? And how would the Dregs fare in their latest job? Find them all in this amazing new fantasy series.
End of Brief Story Line
OK that was pretty awesome. Honestly I did not know what to expect cause I was not familiar with the novel this series adapted from and all I know was what I saw from the trailer on Netflix which just seemed interesting. As a fantasy genre lover, I was definitely intrigued to give a try and see whether I would enjoy it or not. And frankly I was delighted this one was even better than I expected.
At first though, I was a bit confused with the story. The lack of explanation on the different people's class and specialties was a factor that gave me a hard time on understanding it. Plus the moving back and forth between various characters did not really help either. However, once I gave my full attention to it, I could comprehend the story better. It felt like the writers did not really bother on explaining them to us in the beginning and just let us understand as the story progressed. Personally it might be better if they were done in more detail at the early stage.
I said above that this series was adapted from a novel titled Shadow and Bone written by Leigh Bardugo which is the first of Grisha trilogy. Like in other young adult novels, there was a bit of familiarity I felt when watching this one. It has a strong female protagonist who rise above anyone else, different classes in society (in this case in the form of countries) and obviously romance. But what make me like this one a lot were the main characters who were truly interesting.
I really like the Dregs with their unique personalities and the dynamics among the three of them. They were the type of characters whom you would instantly like because they were not so black/white but a little bit grey. Even if none of the actors and actress playing them were familiar to me, I thought they were truly good in portraying them. Oh I also really like Mal who was very protective and loyal to Alina. In fact I liked him better than Alina (though I think it's more because of how her character was written). But the best of them all would definitely be Ben Barnes whom I have seen quite frequently in other TV series. He just seemed perfect in this kind of role.
Aside from those people, there were important supporting cast too, such as Zoë Wanamaker (Agatha Christie's Poirot TV series etc) as Baghra the trainer, Daisy Head (Harlots TV series) as Genya the tailor and few others. There were even characters who I have to wait till a long time to find out their significance. Mostly they did their job adequately and provided good support in the story development.
I also love the special effects of this series and the best of it all were definitely the costume department who did a wonderful job. The music department was amazing as well, providing great musical score where lots of the feelings were enhanced due to them. Btw, the series was classified for 16+ due to its violence, though they were not the kind of gore bloody type. However, it was not all dark and gloomy since there were few lighter moments usually involving Jesper that always brighten the mood. The first season only has 8 episodes with duration between 45 to almost an hour. My most favorite was the 8th episode which served as a great finale with amazing climax and it made me excited of what would happen in the future.
Overall this is an entertaining and enjoyable fantasy series. Despite having a bit of familiar formula in young adult novels plus the lack of explanation of different classes of people, but the good story telling, wonderful characters, amazing special effects and musical score, lovely costumes, and some intense action, made this quite a complete series. I personally love it and would recommend this to those who like such kind of genre.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
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