Paradis City 2025 Tv Series Review Trailer

 Prime Video has set the global release date for its premium Swedish series “Paradis City,” a fast-paced dystopian action film based on the novel of the same name by “Snabba Cash” screenwriter Jens Lapidus.

The six-part series, which will launch March 7 exclusively on Prime Video, will be shown as a work in progress today, January 29 on Gothenburg’s TV Drama Vision.

Stars: Julia Ragnarsson, Sverrir Gudnason, Alexander Abdallah

Produced by Lapidus’ Strive Studios, the series is directed by Alexander Abdallah (“Snabba Cash”), Julia Ragnasson (“Midsommar,” “Blinded”) and Sverrir Gudnason (“Falling,” “Face to Face”). Fenar Ahmad (“Darkland”) and Alain Darborg (“Red Dot”) are the directors.

Adapted for the small screen by head writer Björn Paqualin (“Occupied,” “Thicker than Water”) with Michaela Hamilton (“A Class Apart”) and Oliver Dixon (“The Lawyer”), “Paradis City” is set in the near future.

The polarization of Swedish society has reached unprecedented levels and prison-like walls separate privileged citizens from vulnerable and supposedly dangerous areas governed by special laws. When the Minister of the Interior is kidnapped by masked men at a rally in one of the largest “no-trespassing” zones, Paradis City, special agent Fredrika (Ragnarsson) enlists Emir (Abdallah), a former MMA fighter facing life in prison to find the politician, otherwise she could risk losing the chance to see her daughter again.

“It’s more Hell City than Paradise City,” Lapidus says of his dystopian universe where only viewers can decide who the good guys or bad guys are on either side of the walls. “The titles of my novels have different interpretations, but this is obviously ironic,” continues the prominent Swedish novelist and former criminal defense attorney, whose Stockholm noir trilogy “Snabba Cash” became global hits in libraries and on the small and big screens. The Netflix reboot, co-created by Lapidus, also put Abdallah’s name on the list of talents to watch.

But what made the successful crime writer move away from his distinctively realistic vision of the Stockholm underworld to delve into science fiction?

“Well, I moved to Mallorca, Spain, in 2017, and I left my job as a lawyer to focus entirely on writing,” Lapidus tells Variety. “Listening to and reading the news about Sweden from afar, I began to see a country torn apart by gang violence. That’s when I came up with the idea of ​​drawing a Sweden seen from a distance, not geographically but in time. I started thinking: what if this violence and criminality were getting out of control? What would be the nightmare scenario? Well, that nightmare scenario would be a society unable to protect itself and suddenly forced to build gigantic walls to isolate “dangerous” people.

For Lapidus, his dystopian vision of Sweden is not so far from reality. “Stockholm is one of the most segregated cities in Europe, therefore the walls of ‘Paradis City’ are an extrapolation, a metaphorical representation of what already exists,” he observes.

As for the TV show he produced, Lapidus says the key questions it raises and which he hopes audiences will reflect on are: “How do Western democracies deal with polarization in society? Does the end justify the means?”

Producer Niklas Wikström Nicasto, a partner at Strive Studios, says the show “is structured almost like a feature film, with a fast pace. It literally follows the novel, although of course story-wise we have made changes.”

With John Carpenter’s 1981 film “Escape from New York” starring Kurt Russell as one of the reference points, the creatives made sure that the tone, style and characterization were expanded. Comparing the series’ characters to Frodo in “The Lord of the Rings,” who encounters the Dwarves and Elves in Middle Earth, the author says his protagonists also go on a journey. “In the series, you come across different groups, different worlds. This gives you a broader understanding of society,” notes Lapidus.

Casting-wise, hiring Alexander Abdallah to play the charismatic and fierce Emir was an obvious choice, but finding the right actress to play special agent Fredrika was a long and tortuous process. “Julia got the role just three weeks before shooting. It was crazy. But we are very happy with our choice. Both Alexander and Julia are among the most talented of their generation,” says Nicastro.

The series was originally commissioned by Viaplay, but ended up in the hands of Prime Video when the Nordic streaming service ran into financial trouble and decided to sell the rights.

Watch Paradis City 2025 Tv Series Trailer