to define this film is only a problem of choice. to select the historical accuracy or the artistic virtues. because are two different aspects. and this is not real surprising. to give a good show, the sacrifice of truth, with its not comfortable aspects about earl years of Hussein regime must be ignored. for give a seductive story, the perfect model is the historical plays of Shakespeare. to impose a great show, to use the white and black impose to ignore the nuances. result - a film about power and about corruption, crimes and comfortable personal life - with few small storms - of a dictator. a chronicle of family who could be more a parable than a docudrama.

the words for praising this masterpiece will be less everything was perfect right from the cast to the technicalities behind the camera performances good cinematography, set design, background score everything was too good. the minor things were taken care but the evilness in the saddam hussein personality was not explored much and few things were not mentioned i.e. chemical bomb on the kurd and shia and during the war in kuwait he address to the entire world and especially USA that my people can survive on dates and water even if the entire world boycott usotherwise their was no flaw in filming.rating 4 out of 5

This is a well made, well acted superb production as a series, but it really fails to tell the truth about Saddam's connection with the United States. Once again we have Hollywood deciding what stays in and what stays out and this series makes Saddam to be a something from Shakespeare's "King Lear" and it is utter non-sense. I was surprised and very disappointed since this was made by the BBC and they usually get things right?. I guess when HBO joined in things got changed?. This series never delved into the US role in backing Saddam's regime early, and later backing him to fight Iran by supplying him with Bombs to Bomb Iran for almost 8 years. Killing all the women and children with Chemicals that came from US. This is well known documented FACT and part of the US history but I guess it is easier to make someone else to be the Monster like Saddam.They didn't show one scene with Tariq Aziz in the White House with Bush senior and Regan when they were making all the arm deal to Bomb Iran and later the same US Govt made Saddam to be the monster. This was covered by the PBS on Frontline: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/there was real footage showing Tariq Aziz in the White house and meeting with Regan and Bush all smiles when they were shipping arms to Iraq to bomb Iran and that part of history is somehow OK by HBO and BBC to decided what part of History is made into this fabricated fantasy of Saddam? Hollywood makes it's own history of Saddam and the sad part is for the most part the general public, and mostly Americans whom can not name their own presidents or have very little knowledge of their own history and yet sit back and watch this crap and then write reviews on this site as it to be some amazing series to depict someone like Saddam?.I encourage you people to log into sites http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/and watch the truth about your own history about Iraq and Saddam and US.

As far as a TV mini-series goes, it doesn't get much better than this. The co-production that boasts the heavyweight partnership between HBO and BBC is evident in the quality of the sets, the cinematography, the casting (for the most part), script writing, editing, and acting.Each episode created heart-racing drama, often so thick it could be cut with a knife.My once qualm: as an Arabic speaker, I could hear right through some accents that were clearly not Arab. The worst offenders being Shohreh Aghdashloo's thick Iranian accent handling the part of Saddam's wife Sajida -- an earsore if there ever was one. Another was Agni Scott (ne' Tsangaridou) who's evident Greek accent again distracted from her performance as Raghad Hussein.However, the roles of Uday, Tariq Aziz, Ali Hassan al-Majid, Hussein Kamel, and especially Saddam (played by Yigal Naor) were as convincing as one could ask for.Overall highly entertaining, and informative for those less familiar with the Baath regime, as the plot line curbed closely to the facts. Well worth watching.