I haven't seen the NZ version; sadly it hasn't been shown in the UK to my knowledge. I wish it had been broadcast so I could compare it to this.
Amanda Redman is as good as ever, but some of the supporting actors are absolutely terrible, particularly Mrs Hong, who is either a NZ or Australian actress, and embarrassingly bad. A really, really poor actress who wouldn't even make the grade in a school production...you can only wonder how she got cast! A few too many stereotypes for my taste. The chemistry is good between the detective and Redman. There are some funny lines, but somehow it leaves me expecting more. Wish they had screened the original instead. We are so used to Australian programmes, I can't understand why they didn't show the NZ version, because everyone who has seen it raves about it, and we are left with second best.
Also, I don't know who is doing the make-up for this series, but they are a bit slap happy with the pancake - they all look like orange corpses. Very distracting especially on the detective.