Happy Friday! This week’s “global TV to watch” includes titles from Colombia, France, and Taiwan that are based on books.
This Sunday, April 23, marks UNESCO’s annual World Book and Copyright Day, which “recognize[s] the scope of books – a link between the past and the future, a bridge between generations and across cultures.” So, for your weekend viewing (and beyond), I give you three TV series based on books, two fiction, one nonfiction, all of which are steeped in crime.
Copycat Killer (Taiwan)
This grisly ten-episode mystery-crime drama/psychological thriller tells the (fictional) story of the first-ever serial murder case in Taiwan. It’s based on the best-selling novel Mohōhan (translation: The Copy Cat) by Japanese writer Miyuki Miyabe, whose idea for the story was based in part on actual murders committed by a serial killer in Japan in the late 1980s.
Set in 1990s Taipei, Copycat Killer follows Kuo Hsiao-chi (Kang Ren Wu, Mom, Don’t Do That!), a no-nonsense prosecutor taunted by a serial killer who abducts, abuses, and murders young women from a crime-plagued area of Taiwan’s capital. The multiple murderer’s sadism knows no bounds, as he plays sick minds games with both his victims and their loved ones. And given the ample news coverage of each horrendous discovery that he orchestrated, he takes advantage of the widespread interest in the case to fuel his media circus, manipulate the media, mock law enforcement, and terrorize the public. As Hsiao-chi delves deeper into the crimes, putting his reputation as well as his life on the line to catch the killer, he realizes that things are not all that they seem…
Copycat Killer, a Netflix Series, is currently available for streaming globally on Netflix.
The Mafia Dolls (Colombia)
Consisting of 118 45-minute episodes over two seasons, this gritty, violent, and addictive telenovela drama is based on the nonfiction book Las fantásticas: Las muñecas de la mafia by Andrés López López and Juan Camilo Ferrand, who also co-created the TV series. The title characters in The Mafia Dolls are five young female friends who get involved with Colombian mobsters, notably drug king-pin Braulio Bermudez (Fernando Solórzano, La Reina del Sur), in the (fictional) Colombian town of El Carmen.
But living the high life that the drug money buys has its down sides, as Brenda (Angelica Blandon, Fragments of Love), Olivia (Katherine Escobar, A Grito Herido), Violeta (Alejandra Sandoval, Amor secreto), Renata (Yuly Ferreira, Dueños del Paraíso), and Pamela (Andrea Gómez, Bolívar: Una lucha admirable) come to realize, as they go further and further down the drug-trafficking rabbit hole, getting entangled in dangerous situations that they can’t easily (or ever) get out of, as they are inextricably tied to Braulio, his family, and his henchmen.
Both seasons of The Mafia Dolls, a Netflix Series, are currently available for streaming globally on Netflix.
Nicolas Le Floch (France)
I am a huge fan of Nicolas Le Floch, but it’s been several years since the show ended and I had forgotten about it until I was scrolling through the live channels on Plex and saw it on MHz Now, the free streaming channel from MHz Choice. Adapted from Jean-François Parot’s “Nicolas Le Floch Investigations” mystery novels, the series stars Jérôme Robart (Under Law and Grace, Caïn) as Nicolas Le Floch, the handsome, charismatic, swashbuckling nobleman (he’s the Marquis de Ranreuil), bon vivant, and police commissioner, who serves King Louis XV, and later Louis XVI, from his HQ at the Châtelet in Paris.
For most of the series, Le Floch reports to M. de Sartine (François Caron, Bright-Eyed Revenge), the Royal Lieutenant General of Police, and has as his crime-solving team Inspector Bourdeau (Mathias Mlekuz, Missions) and Sanson (Michaël Abiteboul, The Bureau), the Châtelet executioner who also works as a forensic pathologist alongside Le Floch’s surgeon friend, Doctor Scemacgus (Vincent Winterhalter, Blood of the Vine), in performing autopsies on the murder victims. There are just twelve feature-length, standalone-story episodes of Nicolas Le Floch, and all of them are terrific 18th-century costume drama whodunits.
The entirety of Nicolas Le Floch is currently available for streaming in the US and Canada on MHz Choice and its digital channels, including MHz Choice on Amazon.
__________________
As an affiliate of Amazon and other cos, affiliate links on this blog allow us to earn income from qualifying actions (at no extra cost to you).
