Undercover

I have watched all four seasons, thanks my wife for a translate, and I'm impressed! Extraordinary realistic movie! There is no "superman", "batman", vampires, witches and similar bullshits! This show must to receive reward! I know - the situation in ex communist countries is not good, but now I understand why those people are so sad. Because of this movie, I searched more info about Bulgaria, history, culture... Did you know that Bulgaria is one of the oldest countries in Europa? Did you know that Bulgaria invented Cyrillic alphabet? Did you know that "yogurt" is authentic Bulgarian milk? Did you know that PC has been invented by Bulgarian scientist Atanasov? Oh, my God! We thinking those people are stupid! How can so far I have not seen the Bulgarian cinema!

UPDATE April 2013: Season 1 - WITH English SUBS - is Now Available on YouTube. Just search "Pod Prikritie English subtitiles."

I consider Pod Prikritie, Season 1, to be as good as anything ever produced for TV anywhere in the world.

The show's original writing team (T. Vasileva and G. Ivanov) impress in Season 1 with creating fascinating characters, setting up the major conflicts and intricate story lines within the Bulgarian Mafia underworld.

The story, as the title ("Undercover") suggests, is about a cop who infiltrates an underworld organization. Yes, it's been done before, most recently in "The Departed", which was itself a Hollywood remake of a Hong Kong movie. The twist here is, well, it's a social commentary disguised as a TV series about the Bulgarian mafia.

The actors are all top notch. One actor's performance in particular stands out as a tour-de-force. Not enough can be said about the brilliant Mihail Bilalov, as the sociopath/crime boss "Jaro" (Peter Todjarov), who dominates throughout Season 1. It would be an understatement to say that he steals every scene.

Bilalov's Jaro is that rare performance that reminds one of the power of Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs". In fact, if Hannibal Lecter was a Bulgarian crime boss, he might have been somebody much like Jaro. Only, he would be cannibalizing an entire society.

(As an interesting bit of trivia, Mihail Bilalov only recently resurrected his acting career. Previously, he had given up acting for the past 20 years and worked as a landscape architect in France.)

The directors of the series have done a great job of getting the story on film with impressive visual flare. There is plenty of heart-pounding action, poignant drama, sex, forbidden romance, black comedy and nerve-rattling suspense.

The series, which is filmed in Bulgaria, has the production values one usually sees only in major Hollywood studio productions. At the moment (January 2013), Pod Prikritie (Undercover) is only available on Bulgarian TV or on the internet (without English subtitles).

Pod Prikritie has universal qualities and it will definitely appeal to international audiences. The series has been bought by an American company (New Films International) and, hopefully, will eventually be distributed in other markets.

I would not be surprised if this show ends up getting remade by Hollywood one day.

In conclusion...

Season 1 is brilliant. (I attribute this fact most of all to the original writing team. Watch the pilot of the series for a master-class demonstration of how to set up a gripping story and introduce unforgettable characters.)

Season 2 is... well, still very good. (Although, one can see that the series has lost the brilliance of Season 1. Hint, the original writers - Vasileva & Ivanov - moved on to work on a different show and were replaced by other screenwriters.)

Season 3 is... unfortunately, a rather mediocre type of affair. Gone is the sophistication of the story lines and characters. Even the great Bilalov does not have much to work with here. The writing gets better around mid-season, but it's obvious that the whole production has failed to sustain the high standards of Season 1 and Season 2... The story lines and the characters are much more "on the nose" and uninspired. (Hint, again, the writing team of Season 2 were replaced by new writers and you can tell.) In Season 3 there is more emphasis on pure action and less on character development and suspense. It actually feels like a different series altogether.

Overall, this is a series worthy of a worldwide audience. My advice is to watch Season 1 & 2 (the story wraps up nicely with Season 2). But beware of potential disappointment with Season 3 and proceed at your own risk.

I've read the other user reviews and I must disagree with those who say that these TV series are bad in any way! The actors are very well suited for their parts and you can see the characters' development along with the evolution of the cast's acting skills. The plot is edgy and well written, with minor flaws, but which movie doesn't have flaws? There are a few actors/actresses who fail to depict a proper character and whose language skills while being a part of their dialogues, are purely awful (Irena Miliankova "Sunny" and Milena Nikolova "Adriana"), but the rest are doing a great job.

The screenplay is extremely close to the world of modern Bulgaria- the political games, the judicial system problems, the corruption, the underground mob hiding behind the dirty world of business, the drug markets... Whoever says this is far away from our reality, is someone who lives in a pink soap bubble and has no real idea about the contemporary world in our country! Even some of the scenes are based on actual events and scandals, involving famous political figures and mob bosses.

I give it a 9/10 because I know it's not perfect, but it still is the best from Bulgarian cinema I've seen since the mid 1990's.

Mihail Bilalov (Djaro) is the PERFECT actor for a mafia boss. His looks, his manners, his form of speech, there's nothing wrong with how he portrays his character. He's just incredible. So is the rest of the casting crew (with few exceptions). I'm happy that the Bulgarian taxpayer's money are finally going into something worth watching. In the series there are a lot of Bulgarian inside jokes, so I assume it would be slightly harder for international viewers to understand the jokes from time to time. Otherwise the show may not be introducing new things to the genre (is that even possible nowadays?), but it's perfecting on the most important parts. TV series like Breaking Bad have much more higher budgets and their production quality is way better, but Pod Prikritie (Undercover) is still a worthy opponent.

There is a scene in the sixth episode of the first season where the character 'Ivo' is explaining to his boss, the seasoned mafia don 'Djaro', the step-by-step procedures of the preparation for a daring heist that is worth millions. The scene is set in a gymnasium hall with large mat in the middle used for martial arts practice. As 'Ivo' is sitting down on a chair just by the mat, 'Djaro' disapprovingly looks at his shoes which are partly resting on it. 'Ivo' duly takes his feet off the mat. Why is this significant, you may ask? Well, it doesn't contribute much to the plot, but what it is, is a nod from the director: 'I know what I'm doing'. The beauty is in the detail and in nearly every scene in Pod Prikritie, there is something which functions to make it memorable, whether it be the camera angle/positioning, the lighting, the set, or a simple gesture by one of the actors. All the while, the brilliant score provides the necessary emotional backdrop against which the characters' sentiments can be played out.

A few of the reviews here take a highly critical approach towards this series, without providing much evidence to justify it. Pod Prikritie deserves so much more than this intellectual myopia. For starters, the acting, with perhaps one single exception, is marvellous. For me personally, the jewel in the crown is Mihail Bilalov who is simply magnificent in the role of 'Djaro' - Pod Prikritie's primary antagonist. Think of him as a more menacing, less humorous version of Jack Nicholson's character 'Frank Costello' from The Departed. From his facial expressions to his body language, he is a master of his role and creates a character who is both believable as a human being and as the emblematic face of Bulgarian mafia.

Pod Prikritie's realism is undisputed, and as much as that is a compliment, it is also ironically the point of contention for most Bulgarians. They know this reality; they see it on a daily basis. So why watch it on TV as well? That said, many of the characters have gathered a cult following, while quite a few of their lines have entered the standard Bulgarian lingo.

Coming back to The Departed, Pod Prikritie has often been compared to Scorsese's Oscar-winning crime feature. In many ways it is better: less stylized and more convincing. It is hardly surprising that so many foreign distributors have expressed a genuine interest in showing it in other countries. No doubt, the universal appeal of the crime genre always helps, but Pod Prikritie is as good a representative of it as any production you can think of, be it on the silver screen or on television.