The Hexer

If you watch the polish series today as I did, without any nostalgia most fans seem to have, you'll notice a lot of issues. Given the small budged and time when it came out, I'd fully excuse the funny practical effects, and perhaps even the weird choice to have the witcher carry around an eastern katana-like sword. Back then it was probably cool, so OK.

The Series, as the Netflix Adaptation, is best when it sticks to the source material as close as possible. The stories about the first encounter with Yen, the Striga or the Devil are all good. My issues are with the themes the series decided to introduce. You can pretty much skip the first two episodes and you'd be better of doing so. For some reason Kaer Morhen is depicted to be a quarry, even though there are loads of castles they could have used in Poland (and in fact, they feature castles in later episodes). More over, there are a lot of Witchers and for some reason, they claim not to have any feelings while Geralt is wrong for having them (although every witcher gets visibly emotional multiple times in the episode) and for some reason, they don't know what a woman is? The depiction of Kaer Morhen, Vesemir and the new themes introduced by the series are nonsensical and should have been left on the cutting floor. The Polish Series however manages to stick to the books more often than not, and as such is superior to the Netflix series. Dandelion/Jaskier is painfully miscast, but Zebrowski does a very good job as Geralt. All in all, this isn't an essential series every fantasy fan needs to see, but to a Witcher fan I'd say it is a pretty inoffensive fun adaptation. You'd still be better off spending your time listening to the audiobooks instead though.

This show captures all the philosophical internal conflicts the characters have and the hard choices they must make at every step - not limited to the global conflicts and intricate political schemings that fate and circumstance subject them to.

It is a chronicle of loneliness in the service of mankind and the rise of heroic traits that clash against destiny with tragic consequences, yet through relentlessness, not without an offer of retribution.

The show's very structure, with recurring dreams and visions, reflects back to the psychedelic, trance-like witcher transformation, paired with a spot-on music score, solo voices, ideally suited to fog creeping upon fields and hills and ruined strongholds at morning's dew.

It is everything that the Netflix version isn't:

• The bard sings touching ballads that are beautiful and wise.

• The magic is actually mystical and mysterious and unique, unlike mass produced fireballs every modern show for no apparent reason copy pastes.

• It is much more about family, even though it doesn't explicitly utter the word "family" every few scenes.

• The aesthetic is murky and worn out, and yet there are moments where intense colors of splendor - gold, navy, greens - meet in stunning shots, matching the thoughtful tone of the subject matter. Unlike the mass-produced, average aesthetics of modern fantasy with unlimited budgets.

• The fight choreography makes up for the era it was made in and the budget intelligently. The actor playing the Witcher has completely distinct swordsmanship (Samurai style) compared to every other European knight, with proper actual swordsmanship techniques instead of random flashy moves. I think this shows the difference in skill better than what Netflix does.

• Women are powerful in feminine ways, instead of having to act like men to appear powerful.

• They used actual medieval armor and period accurate clothing so arguably that is much better costumes than fake-looking plastic and generic brand new fabrics from Netflix who had infinite budget

I was skeptical of this show and never intended to watch it when I heard Netflix was preparing season 1 of The Witcher... However, what they did across all seasons, especially 3 and 4, made me seek a quiet retreat - a chill show with poor costumes and no special effects.

But I was not prepared for such beauty and wisdom.

a witchman. and his ways. adventure. mysteries. and Michal Zebrowski in a dark, complex, almost strange role. sure, almost nothing new or surprising, a lot of clichés, tricks of fake Medieval stories, mix between predictable characters/ situations and the flavor of old form of adventure. but one of series with a precious status. to remind the shadows and words and examples of bravery so charming for the early ages.so, memories, magic and a dark character.

I think this series is the best film adaptation of the witcher, and Michal Zebrowski is the best witcher.

Wiedzmin is a series based on a series of books of the same name written by Andrzej Sapkowski, who became known years later by the series of games The Witcher, that including The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is my favorite game, Wiedzmin was very critical , because it has many changes in relation to the books, and it really has some senseless changes, like for example the Vesemir that is one of the oldest wizards in the books, in this series he is a druid, and they put an Old Witcher, I did not understand the change, the series has 13 episodes and each episode is based on a short story, has for example an episode based on the great tale The Ice Fragment that shows enough the love between Geralt and Yennefer (Yennefer never betrayed the Geralt, in fact she betrayed the sorcerer), the cast is contestable, there are actors who are well, but you see clearly the limitation of the cast, the set up is very bad, the battles are very problematic, the special effects are weak (remember that in the rie released the trilogy The Lord of the Rings had left too, obviously that the Polish production has less resources, but still), the soundtrack is good, the photography is good too, it has several landscapes, the makeup is more or less, Wiedzmin is not a crap, they say, there are a lot of problems, but for those who are fans of The Witcher books and games universe, they are likely to like it a little, and the end of the series is cool. Note 64