Rise of the Raven

I've only seen the first three episodes so far.

The film series is an attempt to show the struggle of a people against a conquering enemy.

The period when the Turkish Empire tried to conquer the Kingdom of Hungary.

The action takes place from the late 1420s to 1456, when a Hungarian nobleman, János Hunyadi, takes up arms against the Turkish armies besieging the southern border of the country.

He defends not only his own land but the whole country at a time when the country is in turmoil.

The film follows the life of this man.

I am not a film expert, I cannot tell you about the direction, lighting, cinematography, etc.

But I would recommend it to anyone who loves history and wants to learn about the medieval history of Central Europe, and especially of Hungary.

What makes the film special is that the characters in the series speak in their own anglophone languages, Hungarian, Serbian, Turkish, German, etc., giving a sense of the multilingual world that characterised this part of Europe at the time.

A roughly historically accurate series from the 15th century Hungary with monumental battle scenes and traditional male image. During the Osman-Turkish invasion of the Balkan, the vaivode of Transylvania, János Hunyadi tries to expel the muslim conquerors from Europe. Although he has Christian enemies as well (the Habsburgs and their vassal, the sly Count, Ulrik Cillei, who is the "Littlefinger" of the series and Vlad "Dracul" Tepes, the orthodox vaivode of Wallachia), he achieves many legendary victories on the Turks and as the elected Governor of Hungary, he becomes the saviour of Christian Europe and the father of the mightiest Hungarian king, Matthias Corvinus. The castle of János Hunyadi is watchable in Transylvania in our days as well: the Vajdahunyad castle is the most beautiful Gothic fortification in Central Europe.

I was pleasantly surprised by this series. It starts strong, then slows down a bit, but by episode 4 it sucks you in and you can't stop watching. What I liked most is the strong emotions it stirs up and that all sides are portrayed as likeable, yet imperfect humans. And of course there are the battle scenes, the executions that seem that you are right there with the characters. A couple of times during the series I thought the film was pure genius, but I don't want to give away the plot. Episode 10 is epic, I watched it many times. Don't miss it! I hope for a sequel. At least now I know why church bells toll at noon from Europe to Latin America to all over the Christian world.

It's fun to watch a series about yor neighbours and especially historical one which is more or less on point. Well, emphasis on more or less.

And doing that exactly from the town that was historically of high importance for the main character. Town of Celje (Cili), town or the Counts of Celje especially Ulrik II. Who is actually depicted in this series.

It's a bit sad that our Hungarian friends didn't invite any Slovenian actor to play Ulrik as they did for the Serbian counterpart (although he is not serbian actor) with Serbedzija. But ok.

So far so good for a non Netflixian production and money. Without any real big financial backer, this series does actually a great job.

Still think that a good and tenacious fact checker can't be that expensive, so they should have hired one, but ok.

I'll give it a go. After first three episodes i am intrigued. Let's see where the Raven takes us!

Big congrads to Hungary and Ostereich (ORF).

The series stands out both in its story and execution. From an international perspective, it is a true high-budget quality production. It is worth noting that the story is based on a historical fiction novel series, so the plot is not entirely historically accurate, but the series does not aim to be a documentary either. Regardless, the events are mostly historically accurate. At several points in the plot, modern elements also appear, particularly in terms of the series' strong female characters.

A special merit is that the female characters are truly strong, and this is not due to today's cheap, forced narratives in modern western entertainment. Throughout the plot, every important female character undergoes severe traumas, and rising from these, each of their personalities changes in a unique way. Therefore, we can consider this a positive example of "strong female characters."

The plot is also interesting and full of twists. The first three episodes are mainly introductory, but from the fourth episode onwards, the major political events kick off. The story features interesting character developments (e.g., Sultan Murad, Mehmed, Elizabeth of Luxembourg, or Miklós Újlaki) and layered characters (e.g., János Hunyadi or his real rival, Ulrich of Cilli), making it easy to captivate viewers who are attuned to the style of the series.

Since Rise of the Raven features many interesting characters, the main character Hunyadi often takes a backseat, but this does not detract from the quality of the plot; on the contrary, it enriches the narrative with new threads. Because of this, it is strongly felt in the series that it could have accommodated several more seasons. Nevertheless, the 10-episode format also works. The series gets better with each episode, and its conclusion is epic. The visual world is also of high quality, and the frames presented to the viewer often have a painterly quality. The actors are also excellent, and I would particularly highlight Gellért L. Kádár, Vivien Rujder, Mariann Hermányi, Murathan Muslu and Ulascan Kutlu, but the list could go on.

Another great merit of Rise of the Raven is its international style. The characters (more or less) speak in their own native languages, which makes the series' world even more authentic and complex.

Overall, it is an internationally high-quality production that takes place in one of the most important regions and cross-sections of world history, namely Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Balkans, which are often overlooked in the Western entertainment industry. From this perspective alone, the series pays off an important debt. If you love quality historical fiction (or drama) series like Vikings, Rome or The Last Kingdom, I highly recommend it to you.