Ludik

Great potential. Poor delivery.

It starts off with a great premise but over-acting and hamming by most of the cast ruins what could have been a great series.

Arnold Vosloo does a good job but the rest of the actors are many classes below.

The storyline seems to go around in circles too. I am not holding out hope for a second season. I really hope though that the South African TV industry starts to do better and better.

The flashbacks to Daan's childhood seem to serve no purpose except to satisfy some whim of the director. The music is good but overwhelms the dialog and makes it hard to follow.

There are a lot of details which could made this production better, almost in photography and direction, its just the details like the title of the chapter hidden in a scene of the start, just medicore, or the transformation of the indentity of some protagonist. Actors and the plot of the film are nice, just for that u deserve waste ur time in the six chapter of this serie if u are a series eater, in the other hand, if u havent too much time, there are a lot of series too much better to see.

Other positive thing is that this series is placed on suth africa, and posibility to us to know something knew of this place, if the serie continue, i would like to know something more about that culture.

Gave this a chance based only on the trailer. I really enjoyed the story, nicely paced. The set up is good and the framework of the plot promises a taut thriller and for the most part delivers.

Unfortunately we're it falls down is with some of the supporting characters who are one dimensional mad in some instances annoyingly so. The other big issue is the acting. With the exception of Arnold Vosloo and Diann Lawrenson you watch the rest in disbelief that the us is the best South Africa has left to offer. It is very distracting.

Special mention goes to Sean Cameron Michael who is so bad you just can't have any sense of him being a mob boss as no one would take him seriously.

If you can disregard the acting though it's worth a watch.

Daan Ludik is a successful furniture business owner based in Pretoria; he uses his firm's regular deliveries to Zimbabwe to smuggle diamonds. One day an arms dealer wants Daan to uses his route to take an arms shipment across the border... to persuade him he has Daan's brother kidnapped and tortured. The first shipment goes horribly wrong and this brings problems for Daan; most obviously the police start asking questions for the first time. He also has various family problems. Intertwined with this we see flashbacks of Daan's childhood where his family is dominated by his bullying father.

I thought this was a pretty decent six part series; it may not be the best Netflix has to offer but it is refreshing to have another series from South Africa. It is a shame we don't get more series from this interesting country... or indeed the wider continent of Africa. The story is solid and provides plenty of tension and excitement. The cast is pretty good; most obviously Arnold Vosloo as Daan. The end of the sixth episode answered some questions but raised others; hopefully an indication that more is planned. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to fans of crime dramas looking for a less cliché location.

These comments are based on watching the series in Afrikaans with English subtitles.

Arnold Vosloo's big vanity project!

I really tried to give it a fair shake. But... The sound design is irritating to say the least. The local actors sound like they either just dialing it in or reciting lines. It's not even remotely close to international standards like Squid Game or Money Heist.