This is a lots of style but not so much substance. The creator Gareth Evans is from a martial arts and action movie background, and it shows.
Shifting loyalties of various ethnic gangs over 8 episodes. Paper-thin characterisation apart from a couple of the gang leaders - the Georgian Koba, Asif, the Jamaican. It is true that London and the Uk is ruled by these foreign criminal gangs - Albanians, Russians, Kurds, Jamaicans, Turks as shown here, plus the old traditional British white gangs like the Richardsons, surely the model for this. Joe Cole is Joe Cole and stares well.
BUT it is rather glossy superficial, and the target audience is surely those who do not care much about that and just want lots of blood and guts and violence, shooting, stabbings, explosions etc. Well there is plenty here.
Not a patch on the real classics of TV drama about organised crime and drugs such as Peaky Blinders (early series), The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Narcos. Compared to them, this really is division 2, B-movie land.
I found it hard to suspend disbelief here esp re the supposed UK police guy, the black character who lost his family in series one (Cannot remember the name).
But it's watchable. 3 stars. Just