Streaming platforms / Two different mini-series

The male-dominated London underworld and a three-woman Hong Kong psychodrama. A light one
violent adventure by Guy Ritchie, acting as a counterweight to an endless list of excessive
serious and moralistic crime series, and an existential drama in Hong Kong,
with Nicole Kidman in a sensitive performance

Guy Ritchie in the old dens of stylized violence

«The gentlemen»

Available from Netflix

Guy Ritchie’s films are governed by an entertaining respect for organized crime. In the way the fringe Brit imagines, the gangsters are charmingly eccentric, distinctly funny, and even their most violent and barbaric aspects are subverted with a cute wink. This well-tailored and photogenic version of stylized violence is morally debatable, but in the hands of this director it becomes entertaining. Ritchie is obsessed, an almost childish obsession, with the moral code of villains, an idea that seems quaint in 2024, but which allows you to view his work with a certain distance and fully enjoy its carefree and carefree nature.

If we consider the above, the director’s transition to streaming and especially to the Netflix platform with “The Gentlemen”, the informal spin-off of the film of the same name, was long overdue. Ritchie enlists Theo James (seen in The White Lotus) to play Eddie, an army officer who returns home after the death of his father, a wealthy duke who leaves him his entire fortune (and together all her problems) bypassing his older brother.

Bible-reciting arch-mafiosos, femmes fatales from the world of noir, ruthless individuals willing to kill anyone at the slightest cost, and outstanding deals from the past plunge the new duke even deeper into the criminal underworld, while he persists (not very convincingly) that he wants to leave. The protagonist combines desperation, unwarranted arrogance and a penchant for self-destruction into one charming package. Blaming the series for a plot that lacks verisimilitude is unhelpful. After the “cartoon” revival of Sherlock Holmes, the cosmopolitan “Man from UNCLE”, the unnecessary “King Arthur”, the naive “Wrath of man”, the tasteless “Covenant” and the cold “Operation fortune”, Guy Ritchie returns to his familiar haunts and perhaps the only thing he does well. “Gentlemen” is strongly reminiscent of his early days (“Two Smoking Barrels”) as it belongs to the genre he once brought back to the fore, the British gangster comedy. Although unnecessarily stretched across eight episodes (it could have fit into four just fine), “Gentlemen” is an unexpectedly entertaining and shallow series. Of course, criticism can be made for the shaky foundations of a series that bets on adrenaline and does not care about the artistic imprint. But its light-hearted action works as an antidote to an endless list of overly serious and moralistic series that have filled the streaming world recently, with murders and crimes looking for resolution and existential cleansing for the unsmiling heroes.

Nicole Kidman in one of her most dramatic roles

«Expats»

Available from Amazon Prime

A new six-episode stand-alone drama series follows three female characters who find themselves for different reasons in the vast and often inhospitable to many Westerners of Hong Kong. Set in the vibrant and turbulent context of Hong Kong in the year 2014, “Expats” focuses on three American women – Margaret (Nicole Kidman), Hilary (Sarayu Blue) and Mercy (Ji Yong Yu) – whose lives intersect. after a sudden family tragedy. The narrative invites us to question the healing quality of privilege and explores what happens when the line between abuser and victim is blurred. The comfortable lifestyle of the heroines in a luxurious residential complex does not soothe their psychological calm and the relentless dilemmas that torment them, at least while they are away from their place. The series is based on the novel “The expatriates” and the episodes are written by Lulu Wang, four years after her directorial debut entitled “The farewell”. As in that personal film, here too, the suffocating feeling of loss, the deep blackness of mourning, the guilt that sweeps through everyday life, but also displacement, draw the jagged line of emotions of the heroes. Here the action is aesthetically determined by the evocatively filmed Hong Kong, as the megacity offers an urban map that acts as a backdrop for the three heroines’ choices and directions, which are related in a way we only learn about in the second episode.