Starting with its release in Asia and English-speaking territories an hour after broadcast in South Korea, the series will be available the next day in Japan. Two episodes of “Memories of the Alhambra” will go out to the world every week from December 11.

The suspense romance drama revolves around an investment company’s chief executive Yoo Jin-woo (Hyun Bin) who visits Granada, Spain, for business trip and gets involved in a mysterious incident after staying in an old hostel run by Jung Hee-joo (Park Shin-hye).

“Memories of the Alhambra” is directed by Ahn Gil-ho (“Stranger”) and written by Song Jae-jung who is well-known for her work including “Queen and I”, “Nine”, and “W”. The series is produced by Studio Dragon, the team behind “Stranger” and “Mr Sunshine” which are also available on Netflix.

Netflix has introduced many Korean drama series to the world such as “Life” and “Something in the Rain”.

 After enthralling viewers the world over with its series focusing on the world’s drug cartels, Netflix leaves Colombia behind and heads to Mexico for the fourth season of “Narcos”.

“Narcos Mexico” is set in the early 1980s when drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo (Diego Luna) started the country’s drug enterprise to supply the United States. Michael Pena portrays the Mexico-born undercover agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, who moved to Guadalhara, the centre of Felix’s marijuana business.

Based on a true story, the series follows both Gallardo and Camarena and reflects the politics between Mexico and the US that make Camarena’s work impossible in a corrupt system. It shows ex-cop Gallardo attempting to construct the biggest marijuana empire by gathering drug dealers and running the illegal business just like a corporation. Meanwhile with the DEA office just starting up and as yet unrecognised, Kiki starts noticing the beginning of a giant marijuana business directed for the States and starts chasing the clues.

Like Colombia’s Escobar on whom the first three seasons were based, the characters take their cue from real life people and the destiny they eventually face.

Showrunner Eric Newman, who is behind the success of “Narcos”, says that moving the location from Colombia to Mexico has always been part of the plan. “We were intending to tell the Colombian story then follow the flow of cocaine to Mexico, which is very much what has happened with the business. It’s a strange and very difficult proposition for filmmakers – particularly when you’ve had success in the first three seasons – to say ‘we’re going to wipe the slate clean and start over, recast, re-staff in a new country’.”

But he also admits that it has been rewarding to be able to bring in amazing actors like Pena and Luna alongside some of Mexico’s finest actors particularly Joaquin Cosio in his show-stealing role as Don Neto.

“Despite the challenges, I think it’s our best season,” Newman says.

Luna and Jose Maria Yazpik, who plays Amado Carrillo Fuentes, drug dealer and pilot who transport the drugs and works closely with Gallardo./Photo Netflix

Mexican actor Luna, who is well known from “Y Tu Mama Tambien”, “Frida” and also “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” says the role and the series have challenged him as an actor.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to do something like this. It’s much more than just a character portrayal. It’s also the story of the ’80s in my country and how all this mess started. It’s a very important decade in terms of understanding where we are today and the relationship we have with the United States. It’s also important to understand the case of Kiki Camarena,” he says.

Though the real life Gallardo is still alive and in jail, the actor did not meet the man he was going to portray. Instead he read books, written both by the criminal and others, and watched documentary footage describing his businesslike demeanour.

“We’re talking about a criminal and I’m not sure I would like to know his opinion. I preferred to keep my distance. I’m not really curious as to who he is.”

Luna adds that other peoples’ viewpoints are more instructive than face-to-face meetings, comparing the latter to reading an individual’s Facebook profile that shows how he or she wants to be seen rather than who they really are.

For his part, Pena searched the Internet to get a picture of Kiki and talked at length to his wife and his ex-colleagues. “I don’t know if Kiki necessarily wanted justice more than anything or if he just wanted just to bring down anybody who crossed the line of the law. I talked to his wife Mika Cameron and Kuykendall who worked with him, and asked them what they thought made the guy tick. After all, there are not a lot of people in his world who literally just want to do right or their notion of what is right. He saw the signs of a cartel empire being built, knew that it meant drugs being brought into the US and that people would die on the streets as a consequence. He could see the future and nobody believed him, which made him even more obsessed,” says Pena. The American actor has appeared in several dramas in recent years including “Crash”, “Babel” and “Fury” and more recently in the comedy “Ant-Man”.

“The pressure was greater in a comic role like ‘Ant-Ma’ because they would give me eight papers and then I just had to talk. I had no idea what would be cut so I had to get all those eight pages right within the three days allocated. If I messed up it would mess up everything. I started in drama and that’s mainly what I like to do,” he continues.

Michael Pena plays DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena and Matt Letscher his colleague James Kuykendall. /Netflix Photo

“Kiki is a simple man who was very quiet and totally dedicated to his work. He was very focused on the code of honour and that made him interesting. Playing a very focused person is a great exercise in acting.”

Though he appears in many TV series, Luna says he found it challenging to work in this project, adding that television has drastically changed as have movies.

“As an actor it is interesting to have 10 hours to tell the story of a character. TV is doing what cinema used to do in the 1990s. I think TV is taking the risks today that cinema is no longer willing to. Today in TV there is an urge to find new voices, new narratives and new formats and that’s kind of cool because it demands plenty of creativity and it’s a great place for exploration,” he says.

While the drug cartels in Latin or North America might appear distant to audiences in Asia, it shouldn’t be forgotten that trafficking is also a major problem here in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Newman and Luna stress that drugs are a universal problem and “Nacros: Mexico” shows how it started. Trafficking, they point out, is going on the world over and the war on drugs has killed more than half a million people in Mexico alone.

“It’s not our problem or your problem. It’s a problem we have in the world, the world is all connected now and drug trafficking is something we have to approach as an international issue, as a universal problem. It is very unfair to say that the violence in Mexico belongs to Mexico. Most of the weapons used come from the States. The amount of violence that has happened and is still happening in my country is very well connected to the United States and to the rest of the world. The market is out there. Mexico happens to be that big door between countries in development and the first world. This is an issue of health not of security,” Lune stresses.

“The show, and I’ve seen this with viewers, can be interpreted two different ways. One is sort of a simplistic view – that the good guys get the bad guys – but that’s not what I believe. Other people believe that the takeaway from the show is that this is a never-ending cycle of tragedy and sorrow that is never going to be resolved until we start dealing with drugs globally as a healthcare crisis and not as a law enforcement crisis. You cannot prosecute drug dealers and take out cartels and have an impact on the supply of cocaine because the demand remains undiminished – in fact it increases – and the United States is the largest market for illegal drugs in the world by far. But the rest of the world is not far behind and so what I hope is that when people watch the show, they realise that in Mexico it has not ended. Thirty years have passed and half a million people are dead and we don’t seem to have learned much,” says Newman.

And with that kind of history and its continuation to the present day, there is certainly no shortage of material for more seasons of “Narcos”. There are many kingpins left to portray including, says Newman, Southeast Asia’s opium king, Khun Sa.

  “Narcos Mexico” is now available on Netflix.

 The hour-long Mandarin documentary is based on the traditions and culture featured in HBO Asia’s award-winning coming-of-age original series “The Teenage Psychic” that premiered in 2017 with positive ratings and received recognition at the prestigious Golden Bell Awards. Filmed entirely in Taiwan, the one-hour long Mandarin documentary “The World Behind the Teenage Psychic” seeks to delve deeper into the traditions and culture on which “The Teenage Psychic”.

Viewers in Thailand who don’t have access to the TV channel can watch it on HBO GO through AIS Play and AIS PlayBox.

“The World Behind the Teenage Psychic” follows different characters from various locations in Taiwan, as they explore how the distinct blend of Taoist, Buddhist, Chinese folklore and indigenous belief systems continue to flourish in modern Taiwan.

Featuring anecdotes and stories told by an 18-year-old medium in the Sanchong district, a family of Taoist priests from Keelung city and an award-winning actress and singer whose family runs a funeral business in Nantou county, as well as a practising priest and teacher of religious studies at Fu-Jen Catholic University, the documentary explores the rituals and beliefs surrounding the afterlife and Ghost Month in Taiwan.

“The World Behind the Teenage Psychic” marks the second original documentary for the network, following their first documentary “The Talwars: Behind Closed Doors” that premiered in 2017. HBO Asia started producing its Original productions in 2012 and has since expanded its range of Asian Original productions to include series, movies and documentaries. To date, HBO Asia has produced 13 Asian Originals with more slated to premiere in the coming years.

The event, which from November 23 to 25, features internationally renowned films revealing the diverse experiences and identities of refugees across the world.

Highlights include “Mr Gay Syria”, a documentary that explores the plight of two gay Syrian refugees as they attempt to participate in an international beauty contest; the Oscar-nominated “4.1 Miles”, which follows a Greek coast guard’s attempts at saving thousands of refugees from drowning at sea; and the winner of 19 awards “Sonita”, a story of a young Afghan refugee in Iran fighting against child marriage and seizing her destiny through music.

For the first time, the festival will include a short film produced by UNHCR. “The Unforgotten” featuring UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and South Korean Actor, Jung Woo-sung, who introduces audiences to an internally displaced nine-year-old in Iraq who suffers from hearing and speaking disabilities.

A record 68.5 million people have been driven from their homes worldwide – as many as the entire population of Thailand.

“This year’s films tell us both heart-breaking and heart-warming stories of those forced to flee, said Pia Paguio, UNHCR Thailand’s Officer-in-Charge, “and the power of individuals and communities to change their lives.”

Other films showing in UNHCR’s 8th Refugee Film Festival are:

>> “Every Face Has a Name”, which tracks down and interviews survivors from German concentration camps, 70 years after they reach freedom.

>> “The Invisible City: Kakuma”, which was filmed over four years and unveils the true dynamics of the refugee camp.

>> “69 Minutes of 86 Days”, which follows a three-year-old Syrian girl making her way to Sweden with her family.

Admission is free to the general public and can be booked via UNHCR’s Facebook page at UNHCR Thailand.

Click the link https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdVe6QilnM-7Q1XQ5KoFOX83BXux-hTOTJmmDRSuN24F00k-A/viewform.

Celebrities began arriving for the ceremony, with Oscar-winning director Ang Lee among the celebrities to walk down the red carpet in Taipei’s Sen Yat-sen Memorial Hall.

Chinese director Zhang’s martial arts epic, inspired by traditional ink-brush painting, leads with 12 nominations including for the coveted best film, best director, best leading actor and actress awards.

Taiwanese comedy “Dear EX” about a widow fighting for her husband’s inheritance against his gay lover, follows closely with eight nods in the best film and best acting categories, plus a best new director nod for Taiwanese duo Mag Hsu and Hsu Chih-yen.

Best director contenders are all from China. Zhang, Jiang Wen (“Hidden Man”) and Lou Ye (“The Shadow Play”) will face off against 29-year-old Bi Gan (“Long Day’s Journey Into Night”) and Tibetan Pema Tseden (“Jinpa”).

Zhang has never won Golden Horse best director, while former actor Jiang, who starred in Zhang’s classic “Red Sorghum”, won the title with his directorial debut “In the Heat of the Sun” in 1996.

The best acting awards are also dominated by Chinese talent, with Taiwan’s Roy Chiu and Hsieh Ying-xuan fighting for a home win for their respective roles as the gay lover and widowed mother in “Dear EX”.

China’s Deng Chao, who plays the double of an official trained to protect him in ancient China in “Shadow”, is a frontrunner for best actor against compatriots Xu Zheng (“Dying to Survive”), Duan Yihong (“The Looming Storm”) and Peng Yuchang (“An Elephant Sitting Still”).

Deng’s wife, Chinese television star Sun Li, who also plays his wife in “Shadow”, is vying for best actress against Zhou Xun in Japanese director Shunji Iwai’s romance “Last Letter” as well as Zhao Tao (“Ash is Purest White”) and Zeng Meihuizi (“Three Husbands”).

Three Chinese dramas — “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”, “Dying to Survive” and “An Elephant Sitting Still” — are also in the running for best film.

The best documentary category sees “Our Youth in Taiwan” about the island’s 2014 Sunflower Movement pitted against “Umbrella Diaries: The First Umbrella” about Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Umbrella Movement. Both mass protests were led by young activists and reflected increasing resistance to Beijing’s influence.

Over 40 films out of a record 667 submitted were nominated for the 55th edition of the Golden Horse Film Awards, with the ceremony due to start at 7:00 pm (1100 GMT).

On Sunday, it is breaking new ground with its first non-English series, “My Brilliant Friend,” an Italian-language adaptation of a wildly popular series of novels by Elena Ferrante.

The much-anticipated premiere is evidence of the globalization of television in the internet era, with audiences no longer primarily concentrated in America.

Fans of the books — Ferrante is a pseudonym and the true identity of the author is unknown — are champing at the bit to see the series.

More than 10 million readers have fallen in love with the novels — the tale of a life-long friendship between Elena and Lila, who first meet in Naples in the 1950s — since the first one was published in 2011.

The broadcast rights for the eight-episode HBO series were sold in 56 countries. It will air in Italy on public broadcaster RAI from November 27 and on Canal Plus in France in December.

Even in the United States, where books translated into English barely represent one percent of the market, the four Neapolitan Novels have been big business, with 2.6 million copies sold, according to publishing house Europa Editions.

But the leap to the small screen is still a risky one for HBO, which is collaborating with RAI on the series, which was filmed in Italy by Italian director Saverio Costanzo.

The dialogue is actually in the thick Neapolitan dialect, and not pure Italian, so even RAI will show the series with subtitles.

“That really struck me,” Costanzo told The Hollywood Reporter.

“I asked why an American network should care about the accuracy of a language if their audiences would be watching the series with subtitles. They replied that they wanted the series to be authentic,” he added.

“There, in that moment I understood why HBO is HBO.”

Non-English programming rare in US

Such attention to detail and authenticity is relatively new in the United States.

In 2009, Quentin Tarantino tiptoed in that direction with World War II romp “Inglourious Basterds,” which was filmed in part in German and French.

But until very recently, television series were wary of jumping on board.

Then came “The Americans” (2013-18), the award-winning FX series about Russian spies living in America during the Cold War, which featured long sequences in Russian.

And as the world’s television consumers turn more and more to streaming platforms to find new shows, they are more open to subtitled programming. Danish political drama “Borgen” is one striking example of cross-border success.

Netflix’s “Narcos” — which was filmed in Spanish and English, and debuted in 2015 — “opened the door for the others, by showing that authenticity was vital to the success of a series,” explains Lorenzo Mieli, executive producer of “My Brilliant Friend.

“We couldn’t imagine American actresses playing Italian schoolgirls in poor areas of Naples in the 1950s,” Mieli told a roundtable discussion at MIPCOM, an annual industry trade show held last month in Cannes, France.

Truth in showbiz

Once the leap was made towards more authentic productions, one more leap remained: how to ensure that the novels were not warped in the adaptation process.

“From the very first book by Elena Ferrante, I felt that we shared the same ideas and also the same stubbornness about making things look legit on screen,” Costanzo said at the Venice Film Festival in September, where the first two episodes of the show premiered.

Francesco Piccolo — who co-wrote the screenplay with Costanzo, Ferrante and Laura Paolucci — said the author made suggestions throughout the process, and gradually became more at ease.

Her suggestions were “never to defend the books, but more about how to best convey the ideas on screen. She had great confidence in Saverio,” Piccolo said.

The HBO series is indeed faithful to the book, a sweeping story of friendship, admiration, rivalry and jealousy. It offers a near-documentary look at Naples in the 1950s, where Elena and Lila meet at school.

Both girls are unusually intelligent for their age, and they grow close as they try to escape the violence of their rundown part of town, where the old “eye for an eye” theory of justice prevails.

Filmed in an industrial wasteland in the Naples area, the series brings to life the neighborhood that is stifling them, with only a shabby courtyard on which to play and school as the only escape.

The saga on the female condition is somewhat contemplative, with detailed depictions of everyday life interspersed with the mounting tension between the main characters.

“This series is totally different from what we are used to seeing on Italian television,” Mieli said at MIPCOM.

“We don’t see people running around all over the place — instead we are focused on the complexity of the female characters’ point of view,” he explained.

“I think this may open the door to a new way of storytelling.”

The show will also be available on HBO GO via AIS Play and AIS Playbox.

The behind-the-scenes show chronicles Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, two of the sport’s most accomplished competitors (with 19 major championships combined), as they prepare to go head-to-head at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas on November 23.

“24/7 The Match: Tiger Vs. Phil” will go inside the ropes before the match, offering an all-encompassing look at the careers of these two superstars and their roads to this head-to-head competition, including in-depth interviews with them about the rich history behind their rivalry and friendship – and the intensity that drives both to try and best the other when they meet for this monumental clash.

Since turning pro in 1996, Woods has been a force of nature on the links, revolutionising the sport with a fierce competitive streak never seen before. Woods, 42, has amassed 14 major wins, second only to Jack Nicklaus’ 18, and is two PGA Tour wins away from becoming the most accomplished golfer in history.

His recent win at the Tour Championship electrified sports fans worldwide and underscored his return to championship mode.

Mickelson, 48, turned pro in 1992 and ranks ninth all-time with 43 PGA Tour wins; he’s won five majors, including three memorable victories at Augusta National. Golf fans have been treated to the Tiger and Phil grouping 37 times on the PGA Tour, with Woods holding a slight edge at 18-15-4.

Actor Liev Schreiber narrates.

HBO. New episodes will be screened at the same time every Monday and Tuesday.

The series will also be streaming on HBO Go via AIS Play and AIS PlayBox.

“The Bridge” is a suspenseful investigative thriller that begins when a body is found exactly halfway between Singapore and Malaysia on the second link bridge between the two countries. The body is split in half and made up of two different women. Two detectives from each country, Megat (played by Malaysia’s Bront Palarae) and Serena (played by Singapore’s Rebecca Lim), are assigned to investigate the double murder. Throughout the investigation, the killer reveals that he will bring to light five issues that are causing rot on both sides of the border.

As the story unfolds, a connection between the killer and the ones chasing him becomes apparent and it seems that the killer has one last score to settle. The 10episode, hourlong drama is a Viu Original series, produced in association with HBO Asia and licensed by Endemol Shine Group. The series will be available on HBO Asia’s channels and services in the following countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macau, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Also starring are Cheryl Samad (Malaysia) as Detective Megat’s wife, Erin Tajuddin and Gavin Yap .

“The Bridge” is directed by Lee TheanJeen and Jason Chong.