I watch a lot of foreign dramas. I love the choreography and cinematography of Chinese films. Each one is a visual feast. Swedish movies tend to be a bit dark. I loved Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and finally, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. They are about a journalist and a girl who is a brilliant hacker. In the first episode, she helps him find a woman presumed dead and missing for over 40 years. In the final episode, he comes to her aid against some very corrupt government officials. Dark undertones but absorbing thrillers. Watch them, if you can!
For no reason than because I have never watched Russian films, I added a few of them to my queue. Last night I watched Prisoner of the Mountains about two soldiers taken prisoner in the Caucases by a Muslim who wanted to trade them for his son held prisoner by the Russians. What surprised me was the strong message about the futility of war and the senselessness of the deaths. It is not the kind of film one expects from Russia. I must really have been brain-washed during the Cold War period if I believed Russia was no more than a giant war machine that repressed all those who disagreed! A movie like this would not be possible in a politically and socially repressed atmosphere. I guess the Iron Curtain really is down!