Two from Europe; one from China.

The Inner Circle is a 2019 Swedish political drama, loosely based on a novel by Per Schlingmann. According to creator Nakan Lindhe: "Many of us are getting a bit bored of two gloomy cops trying to solve a murder. At least, I am. I hope and think we’ll see a development in style, Nordic Noir 2.0, where we create compelling and interesting stories about something else than dead bodies."

There is a dead body in this drama, and there are detectives, but the story is primarily driven by politics and psychology, rather than by crime and investigation.

At the heart of the plot is David Ehrling, a charismatic, innovative, but alarmingly accident-prone politician, who is suddenly in line for the premiership. As the media dig up financial and sexual snippets that might well turn into scandals, Ehrling and his ambitious media adviser begin to suspect that a rival political camp is plotting to turn him into a fall guy, whose eclipse will prepare the way for an alternative replacement PM.

Complicating all this is Ehrling's extraordinarily tortured family life. Sharing a house with him are his exacting father, his rather out-of-it mother, his disillusioned and unfaithful wife (well, not unfaithful technically, as they have an "open" relationship, but one of Ingrid's choices crosses the line as far as Ehrling is concerned); a son by a previous marriage who has become thoroughly alienated from Ehrling, whom he regards as demanding and uncaring; a daughter who just longs to have a normal dad; and a truly -- truly -- crazy brother, who sees himself as the moral conscience and "truth-teller" of the family, but actually comes across as a destructive and self-pitying loser.

Torn between family and career, Ehrling eventually opts for the first element. Which is interesting, as dramas usually place women in this sort of situation. You do wonder, though, how long the decision is going to last...

The series is set against the background of Almedalen Week, an annual event (well, annual until covid) offering "a democratic meeting place" where everyone -- politicians, business leaders, civil society, media folks, and just Joe Public -- can join in dialogue, seminars, and fun events. According to fans, every country needs such a phenomenon.

This colourful backdrop, plus the various tugs-of-war (not just family/career, but ideals/skullduggery and journalism/sensationalism), sustain your interest, but for me it lagged a long way behind the Danes' Borgen.

What a dreadful family, though... If Ehrling does ever get back in the game, they're going to carry on being balls and chains, I can tell you that...


To children everywhere... These kids are from Morocco. The little girl at the top is from Cambodia. I have no reason to assume that any of their families have issues...


Bangladesh

A different type of family challenge comes to the fore in Team Chocolate, a 2017 series from Belgium. Firstly, Tytgat Chocolat, a family chocolate business, is far from uniting the family that owns it. And secondly, because the factory employs in its packing department a number of people with Down syndrome, learning disabilities, and mental health issues, we get to meet a number of families who face the constantly evolving question of how best to parent offspring who need guidance but definitely have minds, wills, and emotions of their own.

All this comes to a head when Jasper Vloemans, the chocolate factory's newest recruit, falls in love with a young colleaugue from Kosovo, who is suddenly deported. Unable to envisage life without Tina, Jasper and four of his friends/colleagues set off on an epic road trip to find her. They are pursued physically, first by the Tytgat boss and his once-estranged brother, and then by Jasper's always-worried father. And they're pursued mentally and emotionally by all the rest of the anxious parents.


Sri Lanka

Many of the cast are drawn from Theater Stap, a theatre company for people with learning difficulties.

Producer Pieter Van Huyck comments that the actors sometimes found it challenging to memorize chunks of text, or needed help to understand particular scenes. But the end-product is real gold. He continues: "Their acting style is very true and that was something that touched us, so we knew something would be possible. With [directors] Marc [Bryssinck] and Filip [Lenaerts], from the start it was very logical for them to make a story about what the actors find important in real life, which is to be independent, to find true love, to make their own decisions and to have relationships. This is the true subject and also what is going on in the lives of these people. That’s why they really understood the script."

The script also evolved to incorporate the actors' improvisations.

They're undoubtedly talented. Jelle Palmaerts, who plays heart-of-gold Jasper, is a stand-out, but I also really liked Gert Wellens's performance as Cedric, the dour but patient foreman of the packing department. Wellens has been acting with Theater Stap since 1995.

I have to concur with Van Huyck: "When you start watching this show, you need a few minutes to see these actors but very quickly you forget they’re different and you just see characters, characters you really believe in. That’s something to be proud of... We really think it’s a beautiful way to tell their story without patronising them or approaching something as a social project. They should be treated as real actors and, if you give them that opportunity, their performance is really amazing."

The series sent me scurrying off to find out more about Down syndrome. I'm sure I'm not the only one. So that's really all to the good.

The one thing I didn't like was that the only really nasty characters turn out to be nationalist Serbs, which is a bit of a stereotype, I would have thought...

And quite how Jasper's relationship with Tina will play out in the end is left a little vague. Maybe that's for Season 2 to explore. There seemed to be plans afoot for them to "divide their time". I so hope they didn't get scuppered by covid...


Indonesia


Myanmar

Then there's The Bad Kids, a 12-part series that premiered on a Chinese streaming site in 2020.

It is directed by Xin Shuang, whose previous career descriptions include entrepreneur and punk rocker, and I found it very impressive.

Slick opening graphics; a truly awesome beginning (teacher Zhang Dongsheng shoves his parents-in-law over a cliff, which is not a spoiler, as the scene comes very early on in the piece); great characters and relationship development (especially where the creepy and ruthless Zhang is concerned); complex and sympathetic portraits of broken families, absent parents, single parents, and the effects all these permutations have on children; and an enigmatic ending (we're not entirely sure quite how many people survive, or quite how the details of the second tragedy -- the fatal fall of a little girl -- played out).

So much to like. The only thing I didn't see eye to eye with was the slightly overdone melodrama in the last two episodes. Did the fish factory really need to become quite such a killing ground?


Timor Leste

The Bad Kids is adapted from a similarly named novel by Zi Jinchen, but the title of the Chinese series translates to Hidden Corners (which kind of explains the opening graphics I mentioned). It's set in the summer of 2005 in Ningzhou, a small city on China's southern coast. (Note to post-covid-era self: its tiled-roof houses, narrow streets, and nice stretches of beach seem like they would be worth a visit; looks steamy in summer, though.)

It was spectacularly well received both in China and abroad. It trended in China not only because it featured ordinary people that viewers felt they could relate to, but also because it touched on themes that hit a nerve. A hashtag that translates as "how big is the influence of the main family members?" has been viewed 290 million times...

It's easy to understand why. The three main children are all emotionally bereft in some way. The parents of the little girl, Pu Pu, are dead, so she ends up in an orphanage while her brother is placed with a poor foster family. The tough guy, Yan Liang, is in the orphanage because his father is in a psychiatric hospital. The central figure, Zhu Chaoyang, lives with his divorced mother, who is often absent because she has a new love interest; meanwhile, his dad has remarried, and his neurotic wife and spoilt little girl (Jing Jing, the one who fell) take up so much of his time that there is little left over for Chaoyang.

And the question about the effects all this has on the kids is very real. Pu Pu is sweet, but her quest for justice takes her in less than helpful directions. Yan Liang is good-hearted, but unpredictable and out of control. And Chaoyang... Well, he's the most intriguing of them all. He's a good kid. He's clever. He's sensitive. But he has a dark streak that has been made worse by loneliness, encounters with bullies, and his mother's constant pressure to study, study, do nothing but study. Pu Pu and Yan Liang become his only real friends.

Then there are other families with missing pieces. There's Ye Jun, a policeman and single father. And Chen Guansheng (the policeman approaching retirement), whose wife seems to be in charge of their always crying grandchild (we never see the baby's parents).

A frequent comment on Weibo reads: "Lucky people are healed by their childhoods their whole lives, while unlucky people spend their whole lives healing from their childhoods."


Iran

Aside from the discussion of the psychology, the series has more generally been quite an internet success. That dramatic opening scene, which some social media users have described as "possibly the most frightening moment in a Chinese drama", has turned a once-neutral question ("do you want to go for a hike?") into a popular meme: "Now, one might joke with colleagues that an unpopular boss should be invited for a team-building hike." A picture of the smiling Zhang, emblazoned with that question, has become a sensation, and the spin-off phone cover joined the ranks of bestsellers on Taobao, an online marketplace.

On Douban, similarly, a Chinese hub for cultural and social discussion, "The Bad Kids earned a stellar 8.9 rating from more than 415,000 users, surpassing the rating for all other TV shows produced in mainland China over the past 18 months... Interestingly, The Bad Kids has a surprisingly young audience. The average age of viewers is 26.83 years old, according to popular entertainment website Yunhe Data, which serves as an indication of how the show has successfully embraced young viewers -- the driving force of TV markets... While the Chinese drama market is usually characterized by a predominance of tween hits, costume dramas and romantic melodramas, a spate of grittier, more realistic shows have hit top-watched lists in the past year."

Part of the reason for the show's success, more prosaically, is that it is conscientiously short... That means it contrasts favourably with bloated series which have stretched their story-lines beyond all reason because they are paid per episode. As one critic wrote: "I am sick of watching more than 50- or 60-episode TV dramas with all the unnecessary plot twists and product placements."

Anyway, I liked it. And an extra little bonus was that although I would have got nowhere without subtitles, there was a lot of vocabulary that I recognized. (Anyone keen to seriously use this series for language practice will find these vocab lists very useful.)

If this series has genuinely set a trend, then I look forward to more.


Mongolia


The Philippines