Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn loves his dark underworlds, his lone wolf anti-heroes, and neon-soaked reverie and nightmare. He brings all that to pass once more in his latest six-episode series, “Copenhagen Cowboy” for Netflix. “With Copenhagen Cowboy, I am returning to my past to shape my future by creating a series, an expansion of my constantly evolving alter-egos, now in the form of my young heroine, Miu,” he said earlier this year when the series—about a young woman who wreaks havoc on Copenhagen’s netherworld in revenge—debuted at Venice (read our review here). The series is his second and follows up his “Too Old To Die Young” series on Prime Video.
“Copenhagen Cowboy” stars Angela Bundalovic, Lola Corfixen (Refn’s daughter), Zlatko Buric (from Refn’s “Pusher” trilogy), Andreas Lykke Jørgensen, Jason Hendil-Forssell, Li Ii Zhang, Dragana Milutinovic, and more.
READ MORE: ‘Copenhagen Cowboy’ Review: Nicolas Winding Refn’s Take On the Superhero Genre Is Drenched In Neon-Lit Despair [Venice]
The synopsis from Venice:
Copenhagen Cowboy is a thrill-inducing, neon-drenched noir series set across six episodes that follows an enigmatic young heroine, Miu. After a lifetime of servitude and on the verge of a new beginning, she traverses the ominous landscape of Copenhagen’s criminal netherworld. Searching for justice and enacting vengeance, she encounters her nemesis, Rakel, as they embark on an odyssey through the natural and the supernatural. The past ultimately transforms and defines their future as the two women discover they are not alone; they are many.
His director’s statement from the festival:
Copenhagen Cowboy springs from my own revolutionary fire, seeking to both seduce and entertain the senses, designed to stimulate the mind, the eyes, the tongue, the heart, and the soul where high-strung emotions ignite in a macabre tour de force manifested in Miu, a continuation of my alter egos central to my past, present, and future work: Bronson (Tom Hardy) in Bronson, One Eye (Mads Mikkelsen) in Valhalla Rising, Driver (Ryan Gosling) in Drive, the Lieutenant (Vithaya Pansringarm) in Only God Forgives, Jesse (Elle Fanning) in The Neon Demon and the multiple characters from my show Too Old to Die Young.
“Copenhagen Cowboy” comes to Netflix on January 5, 2023. Watch the first trailer below.