User Reviews

I looked the first episode and can say I like it. Somehow I got caught up in that Nordic noir, watching everything shot north from Munich and I can say I like Uspjeh (eng. Success). Croatian Broen, and architect Haris drives, what else than - Volvo :) It seems to me that 6 episodes will be enough, I hope that from the second to the fifth will not be just filling. I'm a little bit bothered by the use of "dron" cadres, but ok ... at least the city of Zagreb looks like a real European metropolis, not a Balkan village at the end of the world. Original music is great, and music from the 60's must be, it seems to me that all retro today (listen to the soundtrack of Kiling Eve or Sharp Objects) provokes enthusiasm. Two thumbs up :)

A well-made mini series, with good writing and mostly great acting. At only 6 episodes, there is little filler here, as the series moves as a brisk pace, following the intervening stories of 4 main characters. Once the story gets going it doesn't introduce any new characters or red herrings, but shows us the intrigue and interplay that follow the events of episode 1. It's definitely refreshing to see a story progresses in a logical sequence of events and characters acting as real people would, without any suspense of disbelief necessary. The atmosphere is authentic and Zagreb here is portrayed as an urban jungle, with the old town being completely left out.

The script is good, bolstered by a standout performance from Uliks Fehmiu, with unfortunately a healthy dose of camp from some side characters, which is luckily only noticeable to native croatian speakers.

Found it accidentally but I have to admit it caught me. With its very strong pilot it could keep up my interest till the end. Great - and typical - characters, nicely photographed scenes despite of the darkness, perfect music and quite good story. Some of the reviewers compared it to the scandinavian thrillers, there are similarities without doubts. But still different. It has real and pure central/eastern european feeling which can be understood the best who live in the region. Definitely worth to watch, great show. Beside that let me suggest another very strong content from Hungary: also an HBO produced TV-series, Aranyélet (Golden Life) which has 3 seasons and reflects all the main characteristics of the region with powerful acting and story (maybe more intense than Uspjeh has).

I waited for couple of months and then decided to give it a try on Saturday after lunch. I watched all 6 episodes in a row. Very good story, nice director (OScar winning Danis Tanovic) and very good actors and camera. Both thumbs up from my side.

Superb acting, superb cinematography, i really like how they filmed zagreb and how they used drones to establish the locations. Rebro Hospital never looked so inviting. Sadly, the script, like with most croatian movies, not so superb and messes up at the end, already after ep1 the story seems very constructed and proceeds even more "artifical" from the middle on, nevertheless i watched the whole series in two days just to see how it ends.

Things that didnt work for me is how quick viktors father, a criminal kingpin, didnt appear anymore in the series after beginning of ep4, if someone was intensivly working on finding his sons killer it should have been him and his armada of thugs, even in the case that he is imprisoned one should think he is pulling the strings from inside the prison, he has a hunch that his sons ex-girlfriend knows something, you would think that therefore he permanently has a tail on her. Yes kiki admited later to the police on phone that he killed viktors son and ended up dead afterwards, that should made viktors father as suspicious as it should have made the police suspicious because of "motive".

The fact that a realestate-mogul made his own hands dirty by killing one of the main-characters (kiki) with a headshoot, even tho he has its own people for that kind of work (like we could see at the start of the movie), it seemed out of place and out of character. Same is true for the female police-officer who avenges the death of her sister which coincidentaly was a victim of the same realestate-mogul.

The same realestate-mogul at the end of the series seems, all of a sudden, to have one of the lousiest securities money can buy on his own party and ends being shoot by the suspended police officer on the rooftop. This plotholes (and others) just didnt sit well with me. Nevertheless the cinematograph was fine at the end, but that doesnt excuse a bad script.

Now its easy the criticise without making suggestions how to do it differently, out of my head i wonder if the plot could have been improved by letting our 4 protagonists frame and deceive the badyguys (kingpin/realestate-mogul) in a way so that they end up eliminating each other. I liked how navojec portraied the kingping and he did remind me of the kingpin in the punisher tv-series.

Some memorable mentions:

I believe this is the first time i have seen Leon Lucev without a beard, with a clean shave and a nice hair cut he really looks like a total different person, i know him from the movies "teret" and "muskarci ne placu", very fine actor and brilliantly portraid the police chief.

Toni Gojanovic, i only know from Karaula, he is nearly 40 but looks like 30 in this one, very good performance. the stage-act was a bit deceiving, guess this series did have a "red herring" after all and he reminded me of TomCruise from Magnolia. After the mess with croatian war movies i had to watch recently i have high hopes that "sixt bus" which he is staring in might finally be good war movie.

Last but not least, Marija Skaricic, i didnt know her before but did watch her few weeks ago in Nestali, while her character in that series totaly ruined the show for me (yes i totaly disliked it), she is actually a stellar actor in this one, plays a very believable police detective. I actually wished they would give her and Lucev theire own crime-tvshow. Totaly underrated actress, especially because of Nestali, but in this show, her performance a total homerun for a croatia!

All other actors where good too, but they already have a lot of exposion in other shows, thats why i picked only these three for this review.

Last but not least ...

Why did we croatians needed HBO to come to croatia until we produce something that has a certain level of quality, i dont know of any other country that has a film industry nearly exclusively statefunded, lacking quality most of the time and therefore running permanently on a los (taxpayers burden).

In international comparsion this show might be more like a 6 (sadly i dont know the budget they had), but i give this show a biased 8 since zagreb was my hometown for a while and i like how they filmed it and i liked the acting and cast very much.

This is a great mini-series. Thought-provoking and keeps you on the edge of your seat to see how things turn out for characters.

Finally a Croatian TV series worth watching. True level of corruption is portrayed. Love the cast and particularly choice of music. Pretty certain season two will follow ...

I'll give the series that it looks nice and more importantly, that it kept me curious about what is going to happen next. However, there are numerous occasions where the credibility of the plot gets stretched too much and therefore I cannot consider this an amazing piece of work.

I really enjoyed this show. I loved it from the beginning to the end. It was extremely exciting. It's well written and the actors are incredible!!!

"Success" (2019 release; 6 episodes running about 55 min. each) is a TV mini-series. As Episode 1 opens, we see a guy addressing a crowd, apparently a life-style speaker of some sort. "I lost everything and then I met these 3 people", he tells us. We then go back in time and we are in "Central Zagreb", as we see various people getting ready for the new day. One of them is a housewife, and on her way to work, she gets stuck in a highway traffic jam and her car is struck from behind. What happens next will shock you... At this point we are 10 min. into Episode 1, but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is a hard-hitting TV mini-series from Croatia, where the daily lives of 4 strangers (Kristijan, Blanka, Vinka and Haris) end up being intertwined in the most unexpected of ways. (Episode 1 concludes with the 4 strangers meeting each other for the first time--sorry, I can't/won't divulge any more so as not to spoil). News flash: this TV series reminds us once again that there is more than capable TV series being produced not just here in the US. Thank goodness for HBO which diversifies its line-up with such foreign TV shows (think also such other foreign TV series like "When Shall We Kiss", "My Brilliant Friend", etc.).

"Success" premiered on HBO last year. In the current coronavirus pandemic, I've been looking to catch up with TV series that I had missed when they first aired. I recently binge-watched all episodes on "Success" in short order on HBO On Demand. So glad I did. If you are in the mood for a hard-hitting TV mini-series with a foreign flavor, I'd readily suggest you check this out and draw your own conclusion.

Just 6 episodes where the plot sometimes lacks of consistency. Nevertheless it grasps your attention and you wanna go further until you get to a good finale. Good Croatian show.

The show starts out great, interesting murder premise, awesome to be introduced to Zagreb and its life, cinematography and production value are fantastic. However, starting with episode 2 it goes downhill, I still finished it but it's gotten too cliche, banal and cheesy with main characters making one stupid decision after another. They could have developed script a little better and it would have been an A+ show. Cast was great too.

This is a 6-part crime/thriller series set in Zagreb, the capital city of Croatia. The story begins when four individuals meet for the first time during an unfortunate incident which ends up with the death of a young man, son of a local kingpin who will do anything to avenge his offspring's untimely demise. The plot thickens when the young female police investigator enters the picture, determined to find the culprit(s) of this homicide.

The plot has enough twists and turns to keep the viewer glued on his seat while the photography of this show is simply exquisite. After finishing watching "Success" (original title: "Uspjeh") I wanted to visit Zagreb as soon as possible as the city is captured in such a wonderful way that convinces you to make this trip. The performances are exceptional, both the protagonists and the secondary characters are portrayed in a realistic and plausible manner, nothing like the cardboard good guys Vs Villains of the American productions.

Overall, "Success" is a more than successful addition to the year's best crime TV shows from Europe and it leaves you thirsty for more. I would like to check out more series from the countries of former Yugoslavia as I'm sure that I will find more diamonds like this one. Make sure not to miss it!

Finally smth worth watching. Croatian show that shows sad reallity, not only in Croatia, but also in all former Yugoslav republics. Real masterpiece!

Hvala HBO na napokon gledljivoj produkciji. Odlicna serija

6 Ways To Succeed 6 Episodes To Succeed. Since I am a Croat and I live in Croatia, this is something wonderful for me because Croatia has not had such a good series almost until now. As for the actors, I didn't think they could do so well, but I seem to have been wrong.

Great series! Can't stop watching! Totally recommend!

Brutally direct approach to the issues of power, honesty and self-esteem. I liked how most of the characters act directly from their feelings in extreme situations. Also, that the main police character is always several steps ahead of her boss and colleagues, but still gets it wrong.

The scenes of the beautiful city of Zagreb might be the only redeeming quality of this series. The coincidental thread that runs through it is just not credible. Zagreb's population is one million people, yet the four main characters keep running into one another. The writing is weak, the story line is plodding and the acting pedestrian. It starts strong but loses its momentum quickly and follows a formulaic script that we've all seen dozens of times before. Too many scenes of pensive actors staring out of windows. The attempts at shocking plot twists fall miserably short. There is nothing original in Uspjeh.

Wow, loved this, hooked from the first episode. Great acting and a feasible storyline, abet scary in the sense that corruption can have so much power, at the level it came from. Tried to second guess the outcome a few times but failed- but the ending was neatly, and poetically done without appearing clichéd or tired.

Could the four have further adventures? I really hope so!

This series starts off with a group of seemingly unrelated characters but with very little context. The scenes appear to be randomly stuck together in a way that perhaps only the Director and Editor would understand. It appears as if a "story board" is never used at all so there is no consistency or continuity! The dots never connect and the viewer is left totally confounded by the lack of continuity between scenes in each episode. After a while, the best course of action is just to give up and stop watching! A complete waste of time and streaming!