A 'brutally brilliant' World War Two mini-series boasting a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score and starring Jacob Elordi is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
This Amazon Prime original production follows Dorrigo Evans (played by Elordi), an army surgeon whose forbidden romance with his uncle's wife (Odessa Young) continues to torment him throughout his ordeal as a Thai-Burmese prisoner of war. The narrative traces the Burma Railway in 1943 and spans across the Pacific during the Second World War.
One IMDB viewer awarded the series a full 10 stars, declaring it 'brutally brilliant.' They wrote: 'One of the hardest things I watched yet one of the best things I watched.' The reviewer added: 'Do yourself a favour and press play. Photography is just alluring, poetic and yet so descriptive that you just can't look away.'
Storytelling is compelling and keeps you constantly engaged, its tragedy and mourning, and romance, and longing and suffering and friendship and companionship. All together, all at once. Despite being a short series, you get to know every character in such a way that it becomes personal, you suffer with them, you laugh with them and you miss them when they are gone. It's a shot straight to the heart but oh such a lovely one.
A True Underrated Sleeper
The award-winning series, created by Shaun Grant and Justin Kurzel, was described as a 'true underrated sleeper that will blow you away' by one IMDB reviewer. They went on to say: 'This miniseries just creeps up on you. The love entanglements and pre war backstory can be a bit confusing; Then episode 4 drops on you, and you are just blown away.'
'This should be one of those success stories of a little known, under marketed miniseries that came out of nowhere. But the right people take notice and it spreads like the virus it deserves to be. It is a story about how humans can treat each other, and how the lead characters traumatic experience haunts him later in life despite his clearly major success.'
While it's fictional, the atrocities are likely based on fact. Episode 4 is truly harrowing. If you enjoyed the Pacific or Band of Brothers for its exposure of the inhumanity and futility of war - this will be a real treat. It's haunting and makes you think. It sticks in your mind. My hope is that in 6 months from now people will be raving about this and it will garner the awards and recognition it deserves.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is streaming now on BBC iPlayer.
