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@the_th3rdeye
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Unless you are a person who works for Netflix or Made this show or just a film buff like me who has nothing better to do, I can bet you have never heard about this show. If I am right and you're wondering if it's worth watching since anyone barely talks about it, then you are at the right place. The following text will cover what is so great about this series and how its greatness led to a $200 million loss for Netflix and caused the show to be canceled after season 2.
A non-fiction epic of the greatest explorer :
As a brief introduction, Marco Polo was an Italian merchant who traveled through East Asia in the 11th century. This series is loosely based on a part of 'Travels of Marco Polo'. Although the series only covers his initial travels,the depictions were the pivotal events leading to Western trade in Asia.
Summary :
After a coercive landing on his merchant father's ship to the infamous Silk Road, a young Marco Polo gets tangled with his father's fallacy. Leading to imprisonment by the greatest Ruler on the Face of the earth 'Kublai Khan' the Mongolian Emperor who will stop at nothing to become the Emperor of the World. The story unfolds as Kublai Khan takes a liking to Marco Polo and what followed is a story filled with chaos, greed, pride, lust, envy, wrath, and so on. Now to the exciting part, let's see a list of things that made this mammoth of a series to be good and bad.
Majestic Production Design :
The series boasted a very precise and extravagant production design by Academy Award Nominee - Lily Kilvert (The Last Samurai) and Gary Mackay (Lord of the Rings & Crazy Rich Asians). It was also stated that the slum scenes were personally crafted by Lily Kilvert and it looked very realistic to the point where you think if it was really shot in a slum. The Palace of Kublai Khan and every room in it from the Conference Room to the Emperors' Rest area every room had precise detailings. This feat is incredible considering they could have easily designed and detailed the Palace with stereotypical Asian architecture, however they did not. They have carried about thorough research about Mongolian art and design. The Chinese palace is also done the same way, they made sure that the details and design are different from the Mongolian Palace. Thereby making the architecture of the two countries very different from each other.
The cast who were trained to be their roles:
Now, this isn't something new. Nearly all roles require this dedication by the cast , the Game of Thrones cast was literally 'whipped' into shape to carry the heavy swords , medieval props and to ride horses. But in this series, the western audience was fairly new to a Mongolian-based story. So there was pressure to show a difference, therefore during the fight between Kublai Khan and his brother, Hundred Eyes vs A general, there was a clear distinction in fighting styles. Hundred Eyes is a Shaolin Monk so he used the Shaolin style of martial arts, but Kublai khan never used the same technique, he seemingly used a mixture of a Mongolian martial art 'Bokh' and sword technique, so presumably, the cast had been under specific martial arts training, not just getting in shape but they learned proper martial arts. I personally am a sucker for martial art movies and seeing this I awed at a new form of fighting I was seeing. It wasn't only fighting the cast took their time on, they actually focused on Lingo especially Lorenzo Richelmy. Richelmy plays a Venice youngster Marco Polo and Richelmy himself was born and raised in Italy, during his interview with TheWrap Richelmy admitted that he did not know English and had to learn English for this role and he is now fluent in it. Actors learning skills for a specific role isn't something new, however learning a whole new language just for one role, says a lot about the actor.
The next important role that caught my eye was The Mongolian Emperor himself played by Benedict Wong, watching him play Kublai Khan makes me wonder why he plays a side actor a lot considering his stellar acting to portray a powerful, ambitious, cruel, and kind emperor. What really made me wonder was how Benedict Wong managed to portray Kublai Khan not just as a 'King' but as ' a presence'. He managed to capture the essence of Kublai Khan and shows his might, even when there is other stuff happening in the series from a romance subplot to planning a coup, we always have this 'presence' at the back of our mind that keeps saying 'the emperor is still here ... these guys are done of Kublai Khan knows to abut their plan'. From his mannerism and to the way of speaking, Benedict Wong has nailed it, With that, we need to see more of him as the main character on the big screen.
Staggering Female Cast & Feminism :
I wanted to include this in the section above, but there is so much to cover with this astonishing cast that I just could not include them as a subparagraph. 'To summarise Marco Polo's Horse won't ride without the females in the series. This is one of the pictures, that gives importance to female characters over the male cast and the story progresses due to women involved. Essentially the whole series is a game of chess and all the pieces are females. The women are the chess pieces and they are the ones who are moving the pieces of the game, The queens, princesses, spies all the women involved made moves that collectively led to the destruction of a Kingdom, the emperor, prince, and Marco Polo himself were just pawns of their game. The series initially cast an illusion that Kublai Khan is the greatest emperor on earth and he is portrayed that way to other countries, however, he makes decisions based on the incidents happening due to the female cast and it was the same way for the Chinese Judiciary (Chin Han).
The characters that stood out to me were Kokachin played by Zhu Zhu (Pacific Rim Uprising, Confetti), a spy that tumbled a kingdom - Mei Lin played by Olivia Cheng, The Mongolian Queen played by Joan Chen (The Last Emperor) and the secret princess Khutulun played by Claudia Kim (Avengers: Age of Ultron, Fantastic Beasts).
Zhu Zhu has portrayed a strong warrior amongst a time period where young girls were sent to brothel rather than train or educate themselves. Although she becomes a soldier due to privilege from her General of a Father, she makes sure she portrays the other end of the spectrum. To elaborate, women were suppressed during that era (and still are.) and her character shows women can be when given freedom and when her freedom comes from her father it shows a sad truth that women's freedom came from men. But aside from that she literally governs a battalion and wrestles men, all of her actions break stereotypical views of women during the Mongolian era (and even now).
Mei Lin, a spy whose mission is to assassinate Kublai Khan with her daughter's life at stake portrays another part of the female spectrum - motherhood and furthermore, when the Mongolian Empress comes to know about her daughter, she spares the spy who came to topple the Mongolian Kingdom and kill her husband... why? that is only something women can do. Joan Chen and Olivia Cheng has both portrayed the burden they carry while also carrying their character with elegance as both of them are royalty.
The Million Dollar Loss:
Despite having all of these things going on for this series, what happened to this immaculate series that caused severe loss to Netflix? Lets see...
Unnecessary Lavishness:
When Netflix was making this, they wanted it to be their own version of 'Game of Thrones, and they just pulled all these A-Listers, Oscar tier technicians. Furthermore, any period piece requires expensive production value, but Marco Polo needed this lavishness for its story. But this backfired as the cost was more than the income, causing the show to get canceled in 2 seasons
The Rawness Factor :
When a period piece is made, it normally has a couple of scenes that are used to explore the time period, normally it involves running around the street or interacting with the environment, in this series they just show a slum and that's it, they show Marco Polo riding in a dessert and that's it, the incoherence in the landscape makes it hard for us to into this world. As an example, in Spielberg's Ready Player One we got to dive into the world due to traveling between terrains in the VR world. This incoherence in the Mongolian empire terrain, palace, and the seas, makes it hard for us to really follow through with the story . Making the region and timeless raw and unoriginal.
Lack of Appeal :
Game of Thrones was a fantasy series, so it appealed to a younger audience and the story compelled even mature audiences to watch it. The fiction was also well handled that it didn't seem too illogical. But since concepts like Dragons weren't in Marco Polo it was really hard to capture the attention of the audience who had a lot more to choose from on Netflix. The story was also a period piece and period pieces are considered 'boring'. Therefore small audience and an enormous budget caused less income.
The Shawshank Redemption of Netflix :
In summary, there was nothing wrong with the series itself, but just the process to make it was larger than what the series offered. But a series that involved so much research and work definitely deserved more than what it received, so this series has become similar to some of those really good movies that don't gain attention but years or decades later it will be recognized and appreciated. Therefore I believe similar to Shawshank redemption, which was barely noticed upon release but then was raved by critics and now ranks number 1 in IMDb, so one day Marco Polo will receive similar recognition and will become the Shawshank Redemption of Netflix.
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