The Man in the High Castle Season 1 (Series): Review.

in #series5 years ago (edited)

The following review refers to season 1 of the series The Man in the High Castle, and does not contain spoilers of any kind.


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Year: 2015
Category: Alternate History, Dystopian, Science Fiction, Thriller, Drama.
Director: David Semel, Daniel Percival, Ken Olin, Michael Rymer, Bryan Spicer, Nelson McCormick, Brad Anderson, Karyn Kusama, Michael Slovis, Daniel Percival.
Cast: Alexa Davalos, Rupert Evans, Luke Kleintank, DJ Qualls, Joel de la Fuente, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Rufus Sewell, Brennan Brown, Callum Keith Rennie, Bella Heathcote, Chelah Horsdal, Michael Gaston, Jason O'Mara.


Plot

Can you imagine that the Allies lost the World War II and that America was divided into three parts, dominated by Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, only separated by an inexplicable buffer zone? Well, that's the scenario that The Man in the High Castle talks about. On the one hand, Europe, Africa and part of America and South America under the control of the Greater Nazi Reich, which is in charge of imposing its racial order and exercising its world domination based on the technological superiority it has, on the other hand, Asia, Oceania and part of America and South America under the control of the Empire of Japan, who also imposes a set of racial laws and an equally repressive system to the Nazi. The two nations maintain relations as winners of the war, however, the technological advantage that Germany has over Japan begins a kind of undeclared cold war in which the only guarantee of peace is, to the surprise of the audience, Adolf Hitler.


Opinion

The series follows the narrative of several characters, the first of them is Juliana Crain, a young woman from San Francisco who is an expert in aikido and who lives satisfied under Japanese control, but after her half sister, Trudy Walker, is murdered by the Kenpeitai, the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army, since she was working for the resistance transporting a film that must be delivered to The Man in the High Castle, Juliana decides to continue with the mission of Trudy and take the film to the buffer zone, but not before seeing it and discovering that the film shows the allies winning the war.

Another of the narrative lines show Frank Frink, Juliana's boyfriend, who is originally an artist but works in a factory creating replicas of pre-war americas pistols because his art is considered degenerate and decadent, while he lives in fear of being discovered, because even though he does not consider himself a Jewish, his grandfather was. In addition, he is related to his very good friend Ed McCarthy, a character whose level of sacrifice to help Frank when he begins to pay for the actions that Juliana commits is completely out of the ordinary.

On the other hand we have Joe Blake a young man recently recruited by the resistance and who is sent to the buffer zone, where he crosses paths with Juliana, with the objective of waiting for members of the resistance to contact him.

On the side of the Japanese government is Nobusuke Tagomi, the Trade Minister of the Pacific States of America, which is trying to arrange a meeting between the Science Minister Shimura and Rudolph Wegener, a Nazi officer dissatisfied with the Hitler regime and trying to give information to Japan with the aim of equaling the technological advances of Germany and avoiding the eminent war. On the other hand, is the Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido, the ruthless head of the Kenpeitai stationed in San Francisco, who is in charge of investigating and persecuting the resistance while at the same time dealing with the Yakuza, with infiltrations and Nazi conspiracies.

Finally, on the side of the Nazis, and strangely my favorite character this season, the SS Obergruppenführer John Smith, who is basically in charge of confronting dissent in America and recovering contraband films, and dealing with his family problems, is a really shrewd character, loyal to the Führer, proud of The American Reich whom he considers the salvation of the decadence of the pre-war. The reason why I mainly like this character and his narrative line is because he manages to be two steps ahead of everyone, and when I say everyone, I include the viewer.

The direction is quite acceptable, I must say that in most of the episodes I was quite entertained. The first day I saw only the pilot episode, on the second day I saw the next two episodes, and finally, on the third day I saw the remaining seven episodes. Although the pilot did not convince me much, since although the alternative vision presented captivated my attention, some technical failures and relatively forced events by the direction, not the script, left in evidence some defects, which fortunately were overcome in the successive episodes. Usually the pilot episodes tend to force some things so it's fine, especially, because I liked the end of that episode.

The script, structurally based on the book of Philip K. Dick was fine, although it was not uniform, some characters are deeper than others and have more solid reasons to do what they do, I think that does not get a balance at the time of showing the alternative world, I hope that in the second season I can see much more.

In general all the characters are well constructed and act consistently, perhaps, the only character that does not convince me is Joe Blake, who despite having one of the most important conflicts in the series and having a central role, remains show clear reasons to understand his actions, although in the middle of the season lets see a little more of his personal situation.

The performances are good, or most are, each of the actors are good with the character, and transmit the best of them, perhaps, and again, the only exception is Luke Kleintank, actor who plays Joe Blake, and here there is a clear conflict, I do not know if the problem is necessarily the actor or the character, I am more inclined to say that the problem comes from the actor, although I will not condemn him completely.

In short, it is a series that I found quite entertaining, although I would not place it yet in a privileged position for me, I will have to see more of this story. My main criticism would be directed to the character that I described before, to the series of technical defects that I mentioned, but mainly to something that I could intuit after the first five or six episodes, and that I did not know before I started watching the series, I mean the element of science fiction, something that changes everything for me, however, the series, or this season to be precise, remains quite realistic, for now.


Trailer


Score

7/10

Good direction, with an entertaining and well written script, with some technical defects, with good performances, good characters, an intriguing plot, an acceptable staging and some interesting twists. I think it's a series that is above average without reaching the best with this season. It is available on Amazon Prime Video.


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