nsur1
Governor
It may be of interest that I have also posted about this series (see msg #427) https://www.cruxforums.com/xf/threa...in-mainstream-movies.7420/page-22#post-488738) although I was not nearly as thorough or systematic as nsur1.
The evil lady who enjoys watching Katarina get whipped is Lidiya, played by Ksenia Mishina, who I thought was strikingly good looking. She does indeed have beef with Katerina, who stole the heart of the man she (Lidiya) loved. I gave up on the series due to the high volume of melodrama and lack of nudity. The whippings are pretty convincing though.
I quite agree with nsur1 that it is a low down dirty shame that Katarina wasn't put in the pillory in the above scene.
Here's some cheesecake of the stunning Ksenia Mishina. Alas, I could not find any nudes:
View attachment 981584View attachment 981585View attachment 981586
View attachment 981582 I was envious of the dude when I saw this pic; it looks like they're delighted they got to know each other. But in actuality,
View attachment 981583 it's just another day at the office for her.
Thanks for that, Jon, and sorry I missed your originally posting in 2019 -- that predated my CF membership.
I believe the first series (Ep. 1-24) is on Amazon Prime, presumably with English sub-titles, but as I'm not a Prime member I stuck with the Russian-only versions on Youtube. In terms of my stamina for overwrought melodrama, it may be a good thing that I don't understand Russian and don't have the subtitles - I simply downloaded all 48 episodes and scanned each for scenes of interest. Much quicker than streaming each of them on Prime, or Youtube for that matter. Not sure if or when the second series (Ep. 25-48) will appear on Amazon Prime. The first few episodes of the second series have the majority of the good scenes, until the point when Lidiya tries to bury Kateryna alive, triggering a peasant's revolt in the course of which her house is burned with her inside. I'm not so keen about events in the big city thereafter, although the brothel scenes are very sumptuous in terms of costuming. There is mention of a forthcoming third series, but I'm not sure if they managed to shoot it before COVID struck. A lot of ongoing serials may never come back now because the cost and effort of reassembling cast, crew and sets after a 1-2 year delay may be prohibitive.
I know there has been grumbling here about the lack of nudity, but I find myself not minding that too much in this instance -- it's a costume drama and the costumes give a sense of time and place, whereas nude women looked much the same at all times. I think the barefoot walk, dungeon scene and flogging in Ep. 24/25 in particular are made much more powerful by Kataryna wearing her increasingly disheveled blue frock and would be less striking if she were nude or stripped to the waist.
One thing that strikes me is that the only one flogging on the bare back was Kataryna's first flogging in Ep. 18 (or would have been if she hadn't been reprieved). All the peasant girls get whipped on their blouses or shifts. I wonder whether that is because Kataryna's dress was actually expensive and her owner wouldn't want it torn. Lidiya, of course, didn't care about that for Kataryna's second flogging.
Incidentally, I have been a bit inconsistent with the spelling of the name of the heroine. "Kateryna" is what the producers use in their English language promo blurb, but Kataryna, Katerina and Katarina are I think also all valid transliterations.
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