The Shadowplay series immerses you in a Berlin ravaged by male violence

Article originally published on September 8, 2021 and updated on September 28, 2022.

Surprising of course that of the series Chinese shadows, first screened exclusively at CanneSéries’ third season festival in 2020, before being broadcast on ZDF (a German channel), landing on Netflix USA in August 2021 and finally on Canal + on 2 September. In September 2022, the series finds itself at the top of the list of the most viewed series on Netflix, even surpassing The crown.

Quit quite discreetly, this German, Canadian and French production created by Måns Mårlind however, we assure you, it deserves your full attention.

Chinese shadowsa suggestive historical fresco

In the aftermath of World War II, an American policeman, Max McLaughlin, arrives in West Berlin destroyed by enemy bombs, where robberies, rape and starvation reign, to help create a police “commissariat” run mainly by women.

At the same time, Max investigates what happened to his brother Moritz … and soon realizes that the latter has become a Nazi hunter.

In this lawless Berlin still shaken by years of war, lives are fragile, violence permanent. Accompanied by the energetic and courageous Elsie Garten, a former semiotics professor turned police chief, Max faces the harshness of a city that still bears the scars of horror every day.

Chinese shadowsa bombastic program

Highly tragic historical period, tortured, depressed, abused characters, bombed cityscapes, Nazi chases: we don’t laugh a single second in front of Chinese shadowsbut it doesn’t matter, that’s not what we’re here for.

What matters here is the epic story of the characters – each has a specific purpose to accomplish. Driven by vengeance and hatred, they will do everything to get justice. Because what unites the worried heroes Chinese shadowsand this’they were all victims of unprecedented cruelty.

A woman raped by Russian soldiers, a brother shot in cold blood, a child whose parents were deported to Auschwitz: all respond to a different form of violence, sometimes with violence, sometimes with pacifism.

Chinese shadowswomen at the forefront

What scores, first on board, is that women are the first victims of the violence that devastates Berlin in Chinese shadows.

One of the heroines of the series, for example, is forced to have an abortion in miserable conditions after being raped by Russian soldiers, who for consolation throw a pack of cigarettes in her face while treating her to ” german whore when they’re done with her.

We discover the face of this woman at the very beginning of the series, when she is drowning in tears and sobs: this scene is undoubtedly one of the strongest of the pilot of Chinese shadowsas the camera is constantly aimed at Mala Emde’s eyes and cheeks, swollen with despair.

The anguish of this protagonist, combined with that of Elsie Garten and the other members of the police station, whose dark circles betray hunger and exhaustion, speaks volumes about what these women suffer every day, in this devastated Berlin.

The program, while mainly following a male hero, is careful to capture the stories of other victims of the war. Those who did not know the weapons and the front, but the anger of those who went there.

Whether it’s Russian, German or English, the monsters of Chinese shadows they are however meaty menconsumed by hatred and ready to do anything to satisfy their desire for violence.

Chinese shadows, it’s a great show as the German channel ZDF knows so well how to create, whose content is sorely lacking in our audiovisual landscape. However, you will have to be a little indulgent with the characters, whose sometimes clunky handwriting encapsulates them in caricatures.

But once you have made peace with the big clogs that the plot puts on from time to time, you have a rather uplifting moment of leisure!