By Zoey Joyce
Multimedia Editor
Amazon is a popular shopping website that rivals websites such as Ebay and Etsy and other shopping websites. What sets Amazon apart is its division for developing television shows, Amazon Studios. Amazon Studios have produced breakthrough shows such as Transparent, Bosch, and now The Man in the High Castle. Amazon’s original series is based on Philip K. Dick’s award winning novel of the same name. The series is produced by Ridley Scott, and Frank Spotnitz. The show has 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon and 8.3 out of 10 on IMDB. Amazon advertises the Man in the High Castle as being a show that “explores what it would be like if the Allied Powers had lost WWII, and Japan and Germany ruled the United States.”
The show opens up with Joe Blake (Luke Kleintank), in the Greater Nazi Reich, viewing a propaganda film in a movie theatre. There are vivid American visuals with only slight changes to things such as the flag and the pledge of allegiance. The show starts off strong with a weird sense of discomfort thanks to the Nazi symbols all over every day locations like New York City. In another scene we meet Juliana Crane (Alexa Davalos) who lives in the Japanese Pacific States. It starts with Juliana practicing aikido. We follow her through San Francisco as she makes purchases with Japanese Yen and speaks with her parents about the occupancy of America by the Japanese and the Germans.
The show then chronicles the journey of Juliana Crane, beginning with her discovering a reel of film titled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. The reel of film is watched by Juliana and discovered to contain newsreel style footage depicting an alternate history in which the Allies won World War II. She discovers the film was headed to Canon City, Colorado. This means going to the Rocky Mountain States. In this alternate world The Rocky Mountain States is the neutral zone between the two occupied American states. Juliana Crane travels to Canon City where she then meets Joe Blake.
Between the show’s vivid scenes of cities and people in the occupied states and the gruesome depictions of torture and heinous acts committed by both the Japanese and the Germans, the show does a good job of catching the viewer’s attention. The show has an MA rating for adult language and depictions of killing and death. The cast also includes Rupert Evans as Frank Frink, Juliana’s boyfriend, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Nobusuke Tagomi, and Rufus Sewell as Obergruppenführer John Smith. The Man in the High Castle is a good watch for anyone who enjoys history or dramatic shows that can handle the adult language and gruesome scenes.
