Amble over to Obsessed With Film for my review of detective drama ZEN, an adaptation of the Aurelio Zen mystery by author Michael Dibden, brought to you by the designers of the sharpest suits in Rome:
There are so many regional detectives cluttering up British television that executives have started to look abroad for inspiration. But why bother importing a foreign series and subtitling it (as BBC4 did with French crime drama Spiral) when you can simply film British actors overseas, pretending to be foreigners. First out of the gate was an English-language remake of Wallander, where Kenneth Branagh played a dour Swedish detective in a country suddenly populated by "Brits", and now it's the turn of late author Michael Dibden‘s Italian detective Aurelio Zen, played by the smouldering Rufus Sewell. The benefit is we get detective shows crammed with exotic scenery, with a cultural backdrop that’s unfamiliar and thus fascinating to explore. On the downside, it might take some people awhile to adjust to seeing Italians played by people who sound like they're from the home counties, but I found myself adjusting to this oddity very quickly. Continue reading...
