‘Daughter of Fire’ Review: A Glossy Throwback to Old-School Telenovelas
A glossy Patagonian revenge melodrama, the series follows a young woman who returns from the dead to dismantle the lives of those who murdered her mother two decades earlier.
As if the double-decker original title weren’t already waving a neon sign at us, DAUGHTER OF FIRE: THE BASTARD’S VENGEANCE turns out to be exactly what it sounds like: a prime-time soap opera cosplaying as a crime thriller. Shot largely in the cute Patagonian city of San Martín de los Andes and produced—among others—by Adrián Suar, the series feels less like something engineered for the streaming era and more like the spiritual cousin of a “Tonight on Channel 13…” time. Sure, it’s marketed as a suspense story full of danger and moral rot, but the real action is happening elsewhere: in the melodrama, turned up to full Patagonian altitude, and wrapped entirely around Eugenia “China” Suárez, who plays a character that seems permanently in dialogue with her public persona. Or at least with the tabloid version of it.
The show runs on two timelines, the first one existing mainly to justify the second. Back when Clara was a little girl living in an envy-inducing Patagonian cabin, her life revolved around her mother, her friends, and Juan, the kind of earnest childhood crush that exists mostly in series set near lakes with crystal-clear water. She had no idea her mother was wealthy—though the house could have broken the news itself—or that power might have been involved. Those blissful days ended abruptly when intruders murdered her mother and assumed Clara died too. Spoiler: she didn’t. She escaped, vanished, and only reappears two decades later.
Now an adult, Clara goes by Letizia and Suárez plays her with a mix of glamour and slow-burning fury. Living in Spain, Letizia suffers a brutal accident that lands her in the hospital and conveniently introduces her to Fausto (Diego Cremonesi) and his driver David (Chilean actor Pedro Fontaine). They swoop in, take care of everything, and Fausto promptly falls for her, because of course he does. They begin a romance, and—brace for the shock—(this is all in episode one) we quickly learn the whole thing was a setup by Letizia and David. The goal: dismantle the lives of the men responsible for her mother’s death.
That’s the show. Fausto drags Letizia back to Patagonia, scandalizing his ex-wife (a gloriously unleashed Eleonora Wexler), who reacts with the exact level of dramatic outrage you hope for in this kind of series. As Letizia blends into the local community—no one recognizing her as the girl presumed dead, a genre tradition—she and David quietly start assembling their revenge operation. The one unexpected complication: running into Juan, now all grown up (Joaquín Ferreira), who manages to tap into a slightly less murderous side of her.
Think KILL BILL, but drained of its action scenes and reimagined as a Patagonian telenovela full of scheming, secrets, plot devices, and the occasional sexy glare. Around Letizia orbit a roster of shady cops (Carlos Belloso, Luciano Suardi), Fausto’s dim-witted son (Jerónimo Bosia), one of his not-so-secret lovers (Antonella Costa), and several other citizens of this charming town where everyone stares, everyone gossips, and no one wants to miss the show.
Formally, the series is tidy and polished, though it often seems more invested in showing off the landscapes—and Letizia’s wardrobe, which deserves its own IMDB credit—than in developing the inner workings of its characters. DAUGHTER OF FIRE: THE BASTARD’S VENGEANCE (please, use the entire title every time; it’s half the fun) offers a predictable but oddly entertaining mix of suspense set-ups, steamy encounters that are practically engineered to become viral clips, and a drama that starts at a rolling boil and never really comes down.
The three episodes shown to the press don’t reveal much about the town’s buried secrets or the finer points of Letizia’s plan, but a lot of it seems fairly easy to anticipate, especially with the season running 22 episodes. That number alone screams “telenovela DNA,” and Suar—who understands TV rhythms better than most—seems to be targeting viewers who miss long-form, winding storylines. In that sense, it’s a smart gamble. Despite its cinematic sheen, DAUGHTER OF FIRE feels much more like classic broadcast TV dressed up for the streaming era than something conceived for it.
