itt: non-english-language netflix series you recommend (or not) and commentary thereon

it is on my list but some way down :)

EASY LIVING/HELPPO ELÄMÄ (finnish): just started, three series

WRT to kantaro this seems pretty representative of Japanese tv. I’m sitting in a hotel room in Yamagata watching a completely different show where the protagonist is getting erotic satisfaction from the architectural details in the restaurant he’s in. The comedy comes from this and the fact that he is very tall and keeps hitting his head on the the aforementioned architectural details. ( Also he is waiting for a parfait).

the japanese shows i try all seem to have anime-featured schoolkids as primary characters and (as a very old person) i find this quite unengaging -- are there any with more grizzled ppl?

lol my filinta-layoff means that i have stopped being able to distinguish between all the many beards w/fezzes and can no longer follow the plot

More grizzled - midnight diner on Netflix

La Mante cleverly worked out it could get even worse if it threw in gender politics ripped from a 70s giallo. Looking forward to catching up on Spiral though.

Destroy: LILYHAMMER, in which Little Steven’s Sopranos character (in everything but name) goes into the witness protection program in Norway and comedic culture clash ensues. If only.

another vote here for CALL MY AGENT aka DIX POUR CENT when you guys have finished brooding over blasted scando hellscapes

^^ OUI!

Just started that a couple of days ago, it's loads of fun.

dudes i have been baskjng in the drug-tossed med all year

SAME THING

🎶 la reina dul sur, traficante muy famosa 🎵

Eight episodes into Dark and the plot still hasn't completely fallen apart yet so that's good I guess. Compared to the bright consumerist Germany of Deutschland 83, the 80s we see here is dull and rainy and still looks like the 60s or 70s. Pity the characters are such non-entities.

― Choco Blavatsky (seandalai), Saturday, 30 December 2017 02:17 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This completely fell apart in the last episode btw

New Spiral is chugging along nicely in the groove we know and love. Will probably never again feel as exciting as it did around Seasons 2/3.

EASY LIVING/HELPPO ELÄMÄ (finnish) is abt a debt-ridden middleclass family to turn to petty crime to make ends meet

(the dad appears to own a sonic screwdriver to override car alarms)

has quite a funny scene abt app-dating praxis and mores among teens (as explored actually during a coding class, naturally)

enjoying it, so i gave it its own thread: EASY LIVING/HELPPO ELÄMÄ: let's go do some (finnish) crimes

lol there is a series just starting -- THE FROZEN DEAD -- for which the blurb is: "a haunted detective. a shrewd psychopath. and a town overrun with dark secrets. this deadly game is just getting started."

THIS IS ALL OF THEM

*(not to be confused with WITNESSES: A FROZEN DEATH obv)

naturally i am about to start watching it

am i the only one who has gotten a bunch of recommendations for turkish comedies and heartbreakingly unfunny looking polish standup specials

i tried SPIRAL for a while and it was pretty good, but most of the mystery for me was trying to figure out how the french criminal justice system works

but tbt my netflix viewing is done mostly during housework so i couldn't keep up with with the subtitles

in french THE FROZEN DEAD is called GLACÉ -- translation shd have been ICED imo (it's set in the french pyrenees)

WITNESSES: A FROZEN DEATH was just called LES TEMOINS (s2)

i get a ton of turkish stuff, but then i've been on-off watching FILINTA for months

https://78.media.tumblr.com/840bf735199af7fb42095e77089cd932/tumblr_oe93kgNtmb1s71q1zo1_1280.png

Dominik Graf's "Im Angesicht des Verbrechens" is a breezy, offbeat magic realist crime show about Berlin cops vs the Russian mob. The polar opposite of Scandinavian bleakness & probably the best thing on German TV ever since Fassbinder. Idk if the series is available worldwide as the netflix.de version doesn't have English subs.

"merd-uh!!"
translation: "dammit"

:)

(from GLACÉ)

(which is by the way basically a pyrenean rewrite of silence of the lambs, with flayed horses

)

i think that's a pretty good translation tbf! "merde" not as strong as "shit", said around children with impunity

in this instance he *definitely* meant shit

they just translated something else as "blimey" -- sadly it was on a grainy and blurry bit of video the flics were watching so i couldn't make out what was being said

"oh la vache!!"

yes it might be!

if it was my father-in-law it would definitely have been "putain"

everyone should be watching this:
EASY LIVING/HELPPO ELÄMÄ: let's go do some (finnish) crimes

it's good not bad

don't normally have the patience for Korean dramas but am finding the supernatural/crime show "Black" strangely compelling - about a girl who can see death and a guy who's possessed by death. First few episodes are uneven and confusing (iirc the second episode was actively bad) but the way it juggles multiple genres at once is kinda entertaining: it's basically a supernatural thriller, crime procedural, family tragedy, conspiracy drama and rom-com all rolled into one. Also every episode has about 23402908243 subplots.

Friend of mine recommended Dark, which was discussed upthread. Will give Black a try as well, I guess.

We've been watching the french comedy 'Au Service de France' (A very secret service). On the one hand there are some great jokes about bureaucracy and the importance of rubber stamps on the other using 19060s Algeria and the things the french got up to as a situation for comedy seems to, at best, display a complete lack of sensitivity. I was trying to think of a UK analogy and it seems a bit like setting a sitcom in a Derry RUC squad in the 70s.

Where the fuck is OCCUPIED series 2?

quite tempted by CSIC, a CSI knock-off set in taiwan -- tho a few minutes acquaintance suggests it's a bit too wacky office-humour-based

(ie like o/g CSI became)

i went with WHEN A SNAIL FALLS IN LOVE aka 如果蜗牛有爱情;, which has been a huge hit in china and worldwide

DARK should have been called German Things
also it was not very good

agreed :/

i got a pleasingly tart alg-referral for DARK: "In a small town fraught with sins and secrets, history repeats itself in terrifying ways. It's happening again." Because of your interest in FRIENDS

WHEN A SNAIL FALLS IN LOVE has very watchable low-key location work in various chinese cities (also in myanmar acc. the internet) interspersed so far w/not very interesting stylised but unambitious martial arts sequences in which the main cop defeats all-comers

also a bit too much in-office comedy business, stop trying to make me laugh non-english-speaking world, that's what ilx is for

there is also a siow-burn romance promised between the main boy-cop (lean, rugged, moody, fighter) and the main girl-cop (slight, clever, warily watchful, psychological profiler)

(everything about this -- its rhythms, uits mix of elements, what it highlights as the interesting crimes* to be focused on -- is different enough from TV i routinely watch that i am already hooked) (it is not much like noir -- too silly a lot of the time -- and it seems mesmerised by fanciness)

*e.g. someone has buried a load of fine-art imitation antique papercutters in parks and playing fields, where people are cutting themselves

good long tense perp-follow where all the girlcop has to grip onto is a big wrench: she's not armed (tho the way she's filmed toting it is very gun-like)

(are chinese cops routinely armed? i have no idea -- more just turned up who do have guns)

ok lol that rescue initiative could have ended very disastrously

luxury, criminal decadence, martial-arts cops and profiling on the streets of the people's republic of china: WHEN A SNAIL FALLS IN LOVE