War of Letters

I love the series - I am starting to watch the episodes for a second time already and appreciate the intricate plot even more.

1. Bayan is exceptional. Wonderful, sexy, mesmerising, raw.

2. All the other actors are at extremely high level and put fantastic and believable performances.

3. The soundtrack is moving.

4. I like the pictures, though some battles scenes could have had more people in them to create impact and drama (appreciate this is likely a budget issue).

This series excited my interest in this part of the Bulgarian history which I had hardly revisited in 30 years. I want to learn more and watch more! Please make another series once this one is over! (with Bayan in it :-)

The War of Letters is one of my favorite books by the writer Lyudmila Filipova, unfortunately in the movie the conversations between the characters in the movie are in a rather modern language and even worse is that in some scenes it is difficult to understand what they are saying. The sad thing about the whole picture is that it very accurately shows how much we value the Bulgarian language our days. The greatness of the so-called Bulgarian army is nowhere to be seen in the frame, some scenes look like they were filmed in the same place. I understand that having a larger number of people (soldiers) depends on the budget of the film, but in such a case, in my opinion, it is better not to shoot at all than to have 5-10 people walking around in the mass scenes.

This is a very fine series. We are still getting to know the characters after episode 1, and they are all interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens to each character and when and how the future episodes show us more of them. The cast is pretty amazing and all do a fantastic job. The story does grab you and has the potential to be very compelling as they are setting up interesting twists and mysteries.

This is all fiction, not a historically accurate portrait, and it's a really good piece of entertainment. I'm not a history buff but it would be interesting to follow which events depicted are actual historical fact and which are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Waiting for more episodes!

For now watched half of Season 1, the story so far is with literally 3 hol'i'wood crap script decisions - one of them is too much 'almost hard love scenes'. Camera, scenes, scenery, clothes, atmosphere, rhythm - it is exceptional clutched as one movie. Usually there are 1-2 starting very good episodes, and then starts the 'filling', but here - every episode is ~55min (not just the first one!!) and every one of them have 0 wasted time in them. There is no even single waste scene! I definitely would change 2 more aspects - the dreams scenes and the overall 'causality'. By the time was is the mightiest court, and they present it too casual, too profanic, too much 'right now' which is impossible for tzar/emperor dynasty ... such people have always one eye in the future (in the classic books), but here they act more like midlevel managers. If you meet 'strange' moments - they are connected to something further in the series. No idea how is the book, I did read the interview with the authoress, and she said that the movie have the general direction by the book, but it is not 1:1. I sincerely believe the amount of NPCs is just right, as in this time the whole army was ~30k people, so for me it is normal the court to be about dozen people etc. They have horses, and the actors are riding them very calmly and naturally looking. When thew swing swords the movements are super OK, and not hol'i'wooded (or chinesed) at all. They don't use dumb special crap ... and yet there are special effects here and there. Some characters are unbalanced, purely scripter decision, but also they are consistent, so ok.

It's worth seeing the action scenes and get in the mood. Perfect screenplay that aims to pay homage to old-fashioned craftsmanship and skill. The interest in the story is entirely the work of the stars. Demonstrating once again that there are few limits to the talent of an actor or actress. Who inhabits the fragile, spiteful contradiction of the story with such fierce dedication that it brings out the best in the actors around him..!? Although there are scenes of harrowing emotional openness and spontaneous charm, largely due to the degree of calculation evident in the plot and imagery, it undermines efforts to move and seduce..!?