Very well executed

Overrated

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Lars von Trier's weird, crazy TV show about a haunted hospital with an amazing atmosphere and a great cast. Shows that you don't need a lot of money as long as you've got great actors, good writing and the perfect location. Shot entirely on an ordinary video camera, this is "no budget" Arthouse cinema. The second part of the series is just as good, and I only wish we would have gotten the originally planned third part as well, but the untimely death of the lead actor sadly prevented this from ever happening. Still, let's enjoy what we got. 9 stars out of 10.In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's some of my favorites:imdb.com/list/ls070242495

The Kingdom is the most technologically advanced hospital in Denmark, a gleaming bastion of medical science. A rash of uncanny occurrences, however, begins to weaken the staff's faith in science--a phantom ambulance pulls in every night, but disappears; voices echo in the elevator shaft; and a pregnant doctor's fetus seems to be developing much faster than is natural.So far as I know, this was made before Lars von Trier became an international sensation, or just about the time that he did. The lower budget is evident, but the film (or show) is actually much more interesting and well-made than some of his later work. Even from the first segment, we see this is a world on the edge of humanity.I hate to compare it to "Twin Peaks", because that is not the best comparison, but I can see a link... a world that is seemingly normal, though waiting just on the other side of the wrong door is a whole other world. The way the two Down's Syndrome characters were portrayed is wild -- characters with a secret knowledge, not limited but transcendent.

If you get a chance to watch this TV series, please do so as you will be well rewarded. More bizarre than Twin Peaks, this series of 8 episodes is eerie and unsettling throughout, always surprising you with the next unexpected, supernatural revelation. It is an early showcase for the talent Von Trier was to show in his later movies and contains many unforgettable characters from Stig Helmer to Udo Kier's baby calling for its mama to the precognitive Down's syndrome children.Stephen King's American remake Kingdom Hospital doesn't hold a candle to Von Trier's original.

The only thing verging on "extraordinary" in the first season of this TV drama is the degree to which it stretches our patience with the cliché of a mentally retarded character gifted with an inexplicable omniscience about every goings on in the hospital, supernatural or otherwise. His sometimes aphoristic narrative guidance is as gratuitous as it is unavoidable in this show. This was only the most trying of the devices that crop up. Fortunately, there are some well-crafted bits of dialogue and character development. Ernst-Hugo Jaregard in particular shines in the role of Helmer, a pompous, curmudgeonly surgeon from Sweden with an almost superhuman disdain for the Danes in his midst.However, the series is too heavily marred by a simplistic notion of character (or caricature), plot developments that are often too overblown to be taken at all seriously, and finally a miserly attitude in storytelling evident through a too-incremental disclosure of details that form the mystery of the central ghost story. The show is most surprising in how little, ultimately, it delivers. There's just a lot of hot air blowing around, and one can't help but suspect this is to conceal the skimpiness that truly rests in the heart of The Kingdom. I did laugh at several well-keyed moments, but I was never in suspense, and all too often I simply sat yawning.