Sunday 22 March 2015

Wallander - Swedish TV Crime Drama



There are some very good crime dramas in the UK and I'm a glutton for them. Especially Inspector Morse, plus the off shoots like Endeavour (set in the sixties when Morse was young) also Lewis set after the death of Morse. There are other dramas too, like Inspector Frost, Prime Suspect and George Gently. These are all great UK crime dramas.

Now we are beginning to see some great stories from other European countries too. One such crime drama is from Sweden and are TV dramatisations of the Henning Mankell's Wallander stories. They are very gripping. I did not like the English adaptation with Keneth Branagh playing Kurt Wallander. I just could not handle Swedish people walking about in Sweden speaking to each other in English.

However, the proper Swedish version with clear English sub-titles really did it for me. It stars Krister Henriksson as Kurt Wallander with the late Johanna Sallastrom as his daughter who is also a police officer in the Ystad police force. The stories are very gripping indeed. I bought the first seven stories on DVD making sure the sub-titles and all were there. I was glued to this real quality drama and ended up buying episodes 8 to 13 over the weekend.

If you like good crime drama then this Swedish production is very superior among such genres. It is definitely on a par with the good Brit dramas and I would strongly recommend this quality TV show.













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