Greetings
valued Dan's Movie Report readers. Today is a binge worthy day! Yes,
finally the long road from production, to HBO Asia release in
November, to March 6th has arrived! At only 8 episodes,
Grisse run time felt exactly right, longer than a 4 or 6 episode
season, without the padding needed to cover an entire 13 hour story
arc. The fictional town of Grisse, is controlled by a tyrant of a
Governor. The Dutch controlled town is full of a rag tag band of
locals, farmers, many of whom are too poor to know any better. They
begin to rise up following a brutal execution of townsfolk. While the
plot seems a bit basic the story unfolds colorfully and in detail.
This is a western, yes a good old fashion king, rough housing
shoot-em-up! The fact that Grisse was shot in Asia, is so cool,
because of the merging of East and Western cultures, results in a
dramatic flair for action! A big cast, which is a huge change from
the old “Spaghetti” westerns made famous in the 1960s where
essentially a lone gunman had to fight a band of outlaws. Grisse
expands upon this what if the entire town was made up of basically
downtrodden outlaws and the leaders were already in place, not a
hero, a band of bandits but real life governmental tyranny!
I
do not like spoiler reviews and to be quite honest, the show unfolds
like a series of movies all tied together, episodes are sometimes
over one hour long, and each merges to the next to tell the complete
story. I had the wonderful opportunity to do a detailed interview
with Tony Tilse, who directed 6 of the episodes and he speaks on
location shooting and how he was approached to direct.
http://dansmoviereport.blogspot.com/2019/01/director-tony-tilse-interview-grisse.html
The
cast is just great, no one steals the show, which is a very important
aspect of Grisse. The character development is strong, for example an
older lady in town, short and what seems to be unassuming at first
becomes a central strong character, again no spoilers. Plus the women
get in on the action, because they have to to survive, desperate
times call for desperate measures! Speaking of bad ass strong Grisse
women I had the opportunity to interview the incredibly talented
Kelly Tandiono who portrays Hidayat, a strong woman almost an
androgynous character, I must say her presence in the production is
really refreshing, she is a full sized lady who can kick ass, and
show emotion. Check out our detailed interview:
http://dansmoviereport.blogspot.com/2018/12/actressmodel-kelly-tandiono-interview.html
Overall
this is a great product for HBO Asia, and hopefully the series will
be allowed to have a second season and more productions in Asia will
come to the U.S. In the future. Grisse is a western made in Indonesia
which deserves a home in the U.S.A.! The talented cast and crew
should be celebrated, Grisse rates a very strong 8.5 out of 10, truly
a must own, I do home it comes to home Blu-Ray with special features!
Incidentally a very cool behind the scenes video exists which details
the characters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iun1klz6iKI
Also
actress Kelly Tandiono has exclusive behind the scenes video of her
training and on the set of the show!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF5vew1aUyU&t=10s
Watch
for more from the cast and crew of Grisse, coming later in 2019, on Dan's
Movie Report, all exclusive all the time, and www.actionflix.com
The top indie action site on the web!
For further information on the show:
The US series is available now on all HBO platforms! https://play.hbogo.com/series/urn:hbo:series:GXGR8ggjVM4GmwwEAAAAC
