A German Crime Thriller Series Has Taken Claim In Netflix's Top 10

As Forrest Gump's mother once observed, "[Netflix's Top 10] is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." You could just as easily encounter an M. Night Shyamalan flop as you could a xenophobic and otherwise insensitive Obama-era action thriller starring Owen Wilson. On rare occasions, you might even encounter one of those Netflix Originals that the streamer insists everyone is watching (despite only having their vague in-house viewership metrics to back up those claims).

If Netflix's Top 10 is good for anything, though, it's putting intriguing non-U.S. movies and shows on the radars of those who would've otherwise never heard of them, must less gone looking for them. Today's example? "Schlafende Hunde" (better known by its English title, "Sleeping Dog"), a German crime thriller series in which a hardened former detective and a prosecutor who's still wet behind the ears find themselves on a collision course as they investigate the same criminal case. 

Of course, if you're anything like me, then it's not the show's familiar-sounding plot that grabs your attention. Rather, it's the casting of Max Riemelt, the German actor who played everybody's favorite sexy German bad boi safe-cracker, Wolfgang Bogdanow, on the Wachowski sisters and J. Michael Straczynski's cult hit Netflix sci-fi series "Sense8."

Okay, so "Sleeping Dog" doesn't actually look like the Wolfgang-led "Sense8" spinoff we never got, at least judging by the trailer seen above. Still, you can tell Max Riemelt is comfortably in his wheelhouse here starring as the series' haunted protagonist, Mike Atlas. Luise von Finckh, Carlo Ljubek, Peri Baumeister, Antonio Wannek, and Melodie Wakivuamina join him in the ensemble, with Stephan Lacant directing the first three episodes and Francis Meletzky helming the second three. The show itself is actually a German remake of a 2016 Israeli series titled "The Exchange Principle" created by Noah Stollman and Oded Davidoff, with Christoph Darnstädt serving as its sole credited writer.

The official "Sleeping Dog" synopsis is clearly a rough English translation of the German-language original, but it gets the gist across. It reads:

A fallen top cop and an up-and-coming young prosecutor open a closed murder file, each with their own motives — and with it Pandora's box. A dangerous pull whirls both on the bloody trail of a conspiracy that leads ever deeper into the police apparatus — are even the highest circles of the judiciary involved? Or is it all related to a devastating terrorist attack that shook the city one and a half years ago? The answer lies in the policeman's fall, but the trigger for this must first be faced — and thus reveals the true contents of "Pandora's Box."

If that sounds like your cup of tea, then by all means, give "Sleeping Dog" a look. If the show leaves you hankering for even more Riemelt, then do yourself a favor and finally watch "Sense8" afterward. It's basically a bunch of genre shows in the manner of "Sleeping Dog" mashed into one, only much queerer, impressively-stylized, and with a whole lot more orgies. You can thank me later.