The Red Ribbon Club - Season 1 - DVD

Film: Leo (Tim Oliver Schultz), Jonas (Damian Hardung), Hugo (Nick Julius Schuck), Emma (Luise Befort), Alex (Timur Bartels) and Toni (Ivo Kortlang) wish they had normal teenage problems. Getting upset about too much schoolwork, for example, or being plunged into a crisis of meaning by the next pimple - all that would be so nice. But these six have completely different problems. They all have to spend a lot of time in the Albertus Clinic because they are seriously ill. But fate welds the young people together. They found the red ribbon club and from now on they want to master the difficult time in the hospital together. But even if some fears can be better overcome together, the members of this very special club still face challenges that no child should really have to experience.

With the series Polseres vermelles, the Spaniard Albert Espinosa caused an international sensation. After there were adaptations of the material in various countries, such as Italy and Chile, a U.S. remake was also made in 2014, and even Steven Spielberg was brought in as a producer. Despite enormous critical praise, however, Red Band Society turned into a commercial flop and was cancelled after one season. So it was naturally questionable whether a German version of the story would work better. VOX delivered the answer in a surprisingly clear way: the channel's first self-produced series became one of the biggest surprise successes of the 2015 television year.

The reason for this is quickly found. Because The Red Ribbon Club knows very well how to tell the inherently very serious subject matter with a refreshing lightness. Of course, the dramaturgy of the series is not entirely free of clichés, as is the drawing of some of the supporting characters. Especially some of the adult characters seem to be a bit too much of a template. Nevertheless, this hardly has a negative effect on the overall impression, because the main characters and their stories are told in such a charming and captivating way, that you quickly overlook the minor flaws. The series always finds the perfect balance of humor and emotion, so that even the really poignant moments never seem cheesy, but just go to the heart enormously.

The young main actors act all with a convincing naturalness and bring their characters so credibly to life. As a result, as a viewer you suffer with them, rejoice with them, hope with them. This and the fact that the makers have largely dispensed with the consternation so often found in German films and series are the reasons why this series works so well and immediately touched the hearts of the viewers. And since you can see this very successful first season quite often than once, also applies to the DVD box a very clear: Absolutely worth seeing!!!

Picture + Sound: The audiovisual realization of the series is on a good to very good TV level. The picture is absolutely clean, the colors are mixed coherently and the image sharpness is in bright moments on a very high level. In darker moments, there are slight quality losses in the detail representation, but overall an absolutely positive overall impression prevails. The sound is present in an unspectacular stereo mix, but it does its job more than satisfactorily. Good!

Extras: As a bonus there is an extensive special (about 87 min.), which offers a look behind the scenes worth seeing. Admittedly, the special has already been seen on television and is therefore not really a new extra. But for fans of the series, this documentary is a must-see - so it's nice that it's included in the box set. Good!

Conclusion: The Red Ribbon Club was one of the biggest TV surprises of the past year. The makers have succeeded very well in telling difficult subjects with refreshing lightness and pleasantly unsentimentalism. The result is an entertaining and touching series that absolutely deserves its success. The DVD box set of the first season presents the ten episodes in good picture and sound quality and has as a bonus the making-of documentary also shown on TV on board. All in all: Absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp