Hugo Blick is an idiosyncratic writer and director. An auteur with his own style.
Having seen his previous shows. The Shadow Line, The Honourable Woman, Black Earth Rising. Blick goes for an epic canvas, disparate storytelling which eventually comes together.
So I expected the first episode of The English to be dense and even difficult to get into.
Basically the opener concentrates on two people. Set in 1890. Lady Cornelia Locke (Emily Blunt) arrives from England to find the man responsible for her son's death. She arrives in a remote place in Kansas where she is immediately attacked by Richard Watts (Ciarán Hinds) who is under orders to kill her.
Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer) is a Pawnee native and a scout for the US cavalry. He has left them to stake a claim for some land in Nebraska. Before he leaves the army he is told that he will be treated despicably by the white man.
Lady Cornelia sees Eli being held bound and tortured by Watts. He plans to rape her, kill her and then blame it on Eli.
This is a moody revisionist western. It focuses on how Lady Cornelia and Eli meet as he bursts in to save her life and wreaks his own vengeance. It promises to be a complex story, both characters have seperate goals and want their own brand of justice.
Shot in Spain, it looks good and it is very much in the mode of The Power of the Dog, a revisionist western shot in New Zealand.
Having seen his previous shows. The Shadow Line, The Honourable Woman, Black Earth Rising. Blick goes for an epic canvas, disparate storytelling which eventually comes together.
So I expected the first episode of The English to be dense and even difficult to get into.
Basically the opener concentrates on two people. Set in 1890. Lady Cornelia Locke (Emily Blunt) arrives from England to find the man responsible for her son's death. She arrives in a remote place in Kansas where she is immediately attacked by Richard Watts (Ciarán Hinds) who is under orders to kill her.
Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer) is a Pawnee native and a scout for the US cavalry. He has left them to stake a claim for some land in Nebraska. Before he leaves the army he is told that he will be treated despicably by the white man.
Lady Cornelia sees Eli being held bound and tortured by Watts. He plans to rape her, kill her and then blame it on Eli.
This is a moody revisionist western. It focuses on how Lady Cornelia and Eli meet as he bursts in to save her life and wreaks his own vengeance. It promises to be a complex story, both characters have seperate goals and want their own brand of justice.
Shot in Spain, it looks good and it is very much in the mode of The Power of the Dog, a revisionist western shot in New Zealand.