Netflix gets lekker with its first ever Afrikaans series, ‘Ludik’

It began, like so many South African stories, around a braai when writer Paul Buys thought all the tales he was hearing about the “tow-truck-driver mafia” might make for an interesting, action-packed Afrikaans drama series.

With his co-writer and co-creator Annemarie van Basten, the idea evolved into a show for veteran South African actor Arnold Vosloo to star in, playing what Buys calls a “good-bad guy”.

“He’s always played the bad guy. I wanted to see him as a good-bad guy in Afrikaans doing some dodgy business.”

That good-bad guy now arrives on Netflix in the streaming giant’s first Afrikaans original, Ludik, a six-part action drama in which Vosloo plays Daan Ludik, a successful Pretoria furniture salesman, whose empire is based on a lot more than just his large showroom, his omnipresent radio and TV ads and the highway billboards with his face emblazoned on them. Daan’s real cash cow is his side hustle as a diamond smuggler and, as events soon show, he’s definitely not your friendly uncle in the furniture business.

When his alcoholic brother-in-law Swys (Rob van Vuuren) becomes the pawn in a power play for Ludik’s diamond business by gun-running rival Irish gangster Arend Brown (Sean Cameron Michael), everything spirals out of control. Ludik, his wife Anet (Diaan Lawrenson), their family and his work family — secretary Rina (Inge Beckmann), driver Charles (Tshamano Sebe) and tech wiz Lil (Tina Redman) — are embroiled in a battle for survival that will involve an ambitious Zimbabwean gun runner (Lemogang Tsipa), Ukrainian heavies, Muslim diamond dealers and the attentions of two local police detectives (Zane Meas and Mzu Ntantiso).

It adds up to what actress Beckmann describes as a show with a “unique Afrikaans Ozark flavour”. For Vosloo, who has been involved in the project for six years, it’s been a long journey but, as he points out, “We’ve shot six good hours of an interesting, lekker, skop-skiet-en-donder, emotional TV show that’s truly South African and we’re proud of it and we can’t wait for people to see it.”

The show offers plenty of backstory and glimpses into the deeper motivations of its characters. For Van Vuuren, that’s one of the most amazing things about it. Even with “a massive ensemble cast ... each character has depth and a richness. The show is so dense and there’s so much going on.”

It’s also, as Meas reminds us, “The first Netflix show in Afrikaans, going out to 190 countries around the world. It offers a slice of life in SA that very few people around the world get to see. The script is a little off the beaten track, a little different. #maximumwoes was the hashtag for this thing — it just makes it exciting and I hope the rest of the world feels the same.”

While it’s got plenty of action and testosterone-fuelled male-centric competition, Buys and Van Basten also went to great lengths to create rounded and varied female characters. As producer Anele Mdoda notes, these are “all very different females. That was an important narrative for us to push and something I’m very proud of.”

Redman says she was attracted to the “bad-assery” of her role. “All these women are so powerful and have their own autonomy and make their own decisions. It’s quite cool to see.”

Vosloo hopes local audiences will watch it and, “be as proud of it — it’s uniquely South African: written, produced and acted — as we are. That’s what I want South Africans to get from it, like, “Yes! Not only is this a lekker series, it was made by local boykies.”

For her part, Mdoda wants audiences to be entertained. “And you mustn’t be entertained because it’s a South African production; and you mustn’t be entertained because it’s an Afrikaans production; you must be entertained because I really feel that this is one of the most spectacular pieces of content I’ve seen and I consume a lot of TV so I can quickly sus out the rubbish from the royalty.

• 'Ludik' is on Netflix.