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Reviews
Bay Yanlis (2020)
Guys and Gals and their Gals and Guys: A Story from Time Immemorial
This is a love story between two people set in the well established literary genres of romance and comedy. It plays homage to the romantic "screwball" comedy fare of Hollywood in the 1920s and 30s, where there was a distinct modernity to the style of romantic comedy seen in that era - full of wit, sophistication and strong female characters.
As the name suggests, Mr Wrong is a charming, lighthearted, funny love story filled with the usual tropes of a genre that focus on the exaggerated differences between the sexes; utter escapism for us, but important, too, as comfort food for the soul. And as chocolate is chocolate, but its varieties are still infinite, so, too, does this romcom offer us up the same dessert, but with a twist, a combination of cultural taste and global charm, and a sizzling spark of chemistry between the two leads that helps set it apart from the rest.
If you wany to belly laugh, smile foolishly at awkward but cutesome antics, gaze at some spectacular scenery framed within glossy cinematography that wouldn't look out of place in a Hollywood movie for a perios of two hours that seem to zip by in minutes - then suffice to say, this show is for you.
And even if it isn't, give it a try. Filling out two hours (an episode) with love and laughter never hurt anyone. You may even find it will be time well spent, when you catch yourself recollecting its magical moments and smiling at them all day long.
Kurtlar Vadisi (2003)
Welcome to a peek into Turkey's dark and misty valley... of the wolves
Born as Efe Yakup Karahanli the son of a wealthy Mafia family, kidnapped by secret government agents and raised as Ali Candan in a normal Turkish family, and then later as a secret agent working for his government with a complete new face and new life, we follow the journey of Polat Alemdar into the valley of the wolves.
His is not to question why, his is but to do or die. He does not ask what his country can do for him, but what he can do for his country, but ultimately in a court-room finale he will ask his country to forgive all he has had to do and become - in the name of protecting Turkey.
His country has asked him to fake his death and to leave behind his adopted family and the only girl he has ever loved as Ali Candan and be reborn anew as Polat Alemdar, and to infiltrate the Turkish mafia in Istanbul, who control all the shady operations that run throughout Turkey and are known as the Kurtlar Konseyi - The Council of The Wolves -the head of which is none other than Polat Alemdar's real father.
The military style operation named The Valley of the Wolves has begun.
But before Polat Alemdar succeeds in his mission to shut down this organisation he will learn much more about his country's dark past in each succeeding episode and the foreign hands that have a grip on his land and his life, hands that stretch from a secret masonic society all the way back to America, to a mysterious couple named Amon and Lisa...
Sharon Stone's portrayal of Lisa is very strained, while Andy Garcia's is charismatic as Amon, and when both are together they make for interesting viewing.
The long running TV series has been criticised for having regurgitated old American films and shows, but who hasn't in this day and age? It was the first of its kind - daring to show what Turkish TV could achieve. For that at least it should be applauded.