La Reina del Sur (telenovela)

La Reina del Sur
Genre	Telenovela
Created by	Nicolás Castañares
Based on	La Reina del Sur by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Developed by	RTI Producciones Telemundo Studios Antena 3 Televisión
Written by	Valentina Párraga Juan Marcos Blanco Roberto Stopello
Story by	Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Directed by	Mauricio Cruz Walter Doehner
Starring	Kate del Castillo Humberto Zurita Rafael Amaya Iván Sánchez Cristina Urgel
Narrated by	Kate del Castillo
Theme music composer	Bello Jaimes Teodoro
Opening theme	"La Reina del Sur" performed by Los Cuates de Sinaloa
Country of origin	Spain United States Colombia Mexico
Original language(s)	Spanish
No. of episodes	63
Production
Executive producer(s)	Patricio Wills
Producer(s)	Ángel Ossorio
Cinematography	Alejandro García W
Editor(s)	Hader Antivar Duque Perla Martínez Alba Merchan Hamann
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Release
Original network	Telemundo Antena 3
Picture format	NTSC 480i HDTV 1080i
Audio format	Stereophonic sound
First shown in	United States
Original release	28 February (2011-02-28) – 30 May 2011 (2011-05-30)
Chronology
Related shows	Queen of the South

La Reina del Sur (The Queen of the South) is a Spanish-language telenovela produced by the American television network Telemundo, in conjunction with the Antena 3 network and RTI Producciones. Based on a novel of the same name by Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte, the drama depicts the rise of Teresa Mendoza (Kate del Castillo), a young woman from Mexico who becomes the most powerful drug trafficker in southern Spain. La Reina del Sur was nominated for Novela of the Year, Favorite Lead Actress, and Best Bad Luck Video.^[1][2][3] With a $10 million budget it is the second most expensive telenovela ever produced by Telemundo, the first being El Señor de los Cielos.^[4] An English language remake, Queen of the South, premiered in June 2016 on USA Network, starring Alice Braga.^[5][6]

Plot

La Reina del Sur is the story of Teresa Mendoza (Kate del Castillo), a 23-year-old woman who is living with her boyfriend, "El Güero" (Rafael Amaya), a drug trafficker and rising star in the Sinaloa cartel. El Güero has been dabbling in his own trade, which is starting to cut into the cartel's profits, and is killed on the order of Epifanio Vargas (Humberto Zurita), the leader of the cartel. Teresa receives a phone call telling her to run. Teresa is unaware that El Güero's death was ordered by Vargas, mistakenly believing that he was killed by rivals in the organization. She trades El Güero's business ledger to Vargas in exchange for his help fleeing the country.

Arriving in Spain, Teresa is referred to work for Driss Larby, a businessman and low-level underworld operator in the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the North African coast. On the ferry, she meets Fátima Mansur, a prostitute who works at Driss' bar "El Yamilla." Teresa proves herself to be an invaluable asset by balancing Driss' books every night. Teresa meets Santiago Fisterra (Iván Sanchez), a Galician ("El Gallego") who works smuggling black market goods such as cigarettes across the strait of Gibraltar into Spain, and his friend Lalo. Teresa and Santiago begin dating, while Lalo dates Teresa's coworker Soraya. Knowing that Santiago is unhappy working the small time, Teresa arranges with Colonel Abdelkader Chaïb (Eduardo Velasco) to get Santiago into the hashish trade. The trade provides huge profits, and Teresa and Santiago move to Málaga.

A year later, Driss Larby is still smarting from Teresa's abandonment, and conspires with a Spanish Naval Officer, Cañagotas (Julio Pachón), who is on Chaïb's payroll, to have Santiago busted during a major drug run. Instead, Santiago crashes his boat into rocks at high speed and is killed, while Teresa is thrown free, arrested, and sent to jail. Santiago's crooked lawyer, Eddy Alvarez (Carlos Diez), subsequently liquidates all of Santiago and Teresa's property and spends it on his mistress.

In prison, Teresa meets Patricia O'Farrell (Cristina Urgel), the wild child in a wealthy Irish-Spanish family whose exasperated father has abandoned her after having had to bail her out of trouble too many times. The two become fast friends—although the bisexual Patricia clearly wants more. Upon release, Patty reveals to Teresa that she knows where a half ton of cocaine was hidden by her late boyfriend, and plans to sell it back to the Russian mob. During the negotiation, it becomes clear to the Russian mob boss, Oleg Yasilkov (Alberto Jiménez), that Teresa's business smarts would be a valuable asset to him. Teresa negotiates the retrieval of the cocaine from its hiding place, under the nose of the confounded Spanish police, the first of many successes in her new career as a rising drug lord.

DEA agent Willy Rangel (Cristian Tappan) travels to Spain, where he begins working with Flores to build a case against Teresa, who is rapidly becoming the most powerful drug trafficker in southern Spain. Backed by Yasilkov, and with the assistance of Teo Aljarafe (Miguel de Miguel), a lawyer and occasional lover of Patty, she opens Transer Naga, a shell company set up to disguise her true business. Shortly afterward, three assassins arrive from Mexico, bent on seeking revenge against Teresa. With Oleg's help, one of them is executed, one escapes, and one, "El Pote" (Dagoberto Gama) eventually becomes her personal bodyguard. Teresa and Teo grow closer, despite her reservations about it, and eventually embark on a relationship.

In the meantime, Willy has brought his assistant, Veronica (Sara Maldonado) to Spain to pose as a love interest for Patty in order to gain access to Transer Naga. Willy also pressures Teo into turning informant, threatening to reveal to Teresa that Teo has been skimming from the company. As months pass, Teresa and Teo attract media attention, and Patty, dumped by Veronica and jealous of Teresa replacing her as media darling, begins a downward spiral of drugs and alcohol. Stalking Veronica in an attempt to get her back, Patty learns the truth about her ex-girlfriend: that she works for the police and has been using Patty to take down Teresa. Distraught, Patty drives the car off of a cliff, killing Veronica. On awakening in the hospital, she tells Teresa everything she knows, then commits suicide.

In Mexico, Epifanio Vargas has been working as the chief of campaign for the next presidential election. His nephew (who is, in fact, his son) Ramiro (Salvador Zerboni) arranges for the candidate to be assassinated, ensuring that the candidacy will go to Vargas instead. Spurred on by the fact that the head of the Sinaloa cartel is about to be elected president of Mexico, the DEA changes tactics and offers Teresa immunity against prosecution if she agrees to testify against Vargas and destroy his political career. At the same time, Vargas asks Ramiro to bring Teresa back to Mexico under the guise of extending an invitation to attend his candidacy, but in reality to execute her because she is the only person still alive who knows about his criminal past.

Oleg presents Teresa with evidence that Teo is a police informant. Teresa sets a trap for Teo and confronts him with the truth, after which Pote executes him. Finding that the Spanish police are trying to obtain an arrest warrant and do an end-run around the DEA, Teresa accepts the immunity deal and agrees to testify against Vargas who, she realizes, has been her enemy all along. On her return to Culiacan, Vargas tries at first to plead with Teresa not to testify but, being unsuccessful, orders her assassination in a raid on the safe house where she is staying. Teresa narrowly escapes, shooting Ramiro in the chest point-blank after he has killed Pote. The next day, she leaves the police station in triumph and Vargas is led away in handcuffs.

A short coda shows a heavily pregnant Teresa, seven months later, living a life of peace and quiet in a seaside villa somewhere in Spain. A high shot of her walking along a pier, holding her belly and smiling, ends the series. In the last few episodes it is established that the show has taken place over the span of approximately thirteen years.

Reception

The program's premiere on February 28, 2011, was the network's highest rated premiere for a telenovela to date.^[7] The program frequently dominated its time slot, even over English language programming on other major American networks.^[8] La Reina del Sur completed its 63 episode run on Telemundo and its 13 episode run on Antena 3 simultaneously on May 30, 2011. The final episode was the highest rated broadcast in Telemundo's 19-year history (4.2 million viewers), and beat all of the English language American television networks to earn the number one slot in the 18-49 adult demographic.^[9] The program's success spurred Telemundo to launch its first campaign to gain the series an Emmy Award nomination.^[10] A one-night special featuring several cast members aired on May 31, 2011, and marked the Telemundo debut of noted Latina television personality Cristina Saralegui.

As part of Telemundo's changes in prime-time programming, Dama y Obrero ended on October 18, 2013. From October 21 to November 8, Telemundo temporarily aired 2 hours of Marido en Alquiler weeknights at 8pm/7c, replacing Dama y Obrero. On November 11, the network started rerunning La Reina del Sur weeknights at 9pm/8c, replacing one hour of Marido en Alquiler.^[11][12] The last episode was broadcast on February 17, with En Otra Piel replacing it the following night.

La Reina del Sur is broadcast in several other markets, including Serbia, Colombia,^[13] Chile,^[14] Cyprus,^[15] Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico, Albania, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, (among others).

Production

La Reina del Sur was announced by Telemundo as part of its 2010-2011 program year in early 2010. The majority of the program was shot in the fall of 2010 at Telemundo's studios in Colombia. Several actors and sets were simultaneously used for more than one production. Sets depicting Morocco in the telenovela El Clon were also used to depict Gibraltar and Fez during filming. Some scenes filmed in Colombia were also used in El Cartel 2: La Guerra Total.

Rafael Amaya shot some scenes for La Reina del Sur while also filming Alguien te mira. Sara Maldonado also did double duty for this and Aurora.

Footage was also shot on location in Mexico, Spain, Gibraltar, United States, and Morocco.

Opening credits and theme

The opening credits for the show were displayed after a lengthy cold open (generally 15–20 minutes into the broadcast). The credits featured a montage of scenes from throughout the series.

The theme song, performed by Los Cuates de Sinaloa, is a cover of Los Tigres del Norte's 2002 song, "La Reina del Sur". The cover version's lyrics recount the story of Perez Reverte's fictional heroine.

Cast

Main

• Kate del Castillo as Teresa Mendoza
• Humberto Zurita as Epifanio Vargas
• Rafael Amaya as Raimundo Dávila Parra "El Güero"
• Iván Sánchez as Santiago López Fisterra "El Gallego"
• Cristina Urgel as Patricia O'Farrell

Also main

• Alberto Jiménez as Oleg Yasikov
• Miguel de Miguel as Teo Aljarafe
• Gabriel Porras as Roberto Gato Márquez "El Gato Fierros"
• Salvador Zerboni as Ramiro Vargas "El Ratas"
• Nacho Fresneda as Dris Larbi
• Alejandro Calva as César Güemes "Batman"
• Mónica Estarreado as Fátima Mansur
• Karim El-Kerem as Mohamed Mansur
• Cuca Escribano as Sheila
• Dagoberto Gama as Potequim Gálvez "El Pote"
• Christian Tappán as Willy Rangel
• Alfonso Vallejo as Manolo Céspedes
• Pablo Castañón as Lalo Veiga
• Miguel Ángel Blanco as Siso Pernas
• Lorena Santos as Soraya

Recurring

• Sara Maldonado as Verónica Cortés "Guadalupe Romero"
• Carmen Navarro as Marcela "La Conejo"
• Santiago Meléndez as Saturnino "Nino" Juárez
• Eduardo Velasco as Coronel Abdelkader Chaib
• Klaus as Eddie Álvarez
• Lincoln Palomeque as Faustino Sánchez Godoy
• Nerea Garmendia as Eugenia Montijo
• Diego Mignone as Cucho Malaspina

Guest

• Juan Pablo Raba as Jaime Gutiérrez Solana
• Ezequiel Montalt as Jaime "Jimmy" Arenas
• Rodolfo Valdés as El Chino Parra

Broadcast

The series originally aired from February 28, 2011 to May 30, 2011 in the United States on Telemundo, and was repeated from November 11, 2013 through February 17, 2014. On August 22, 2016, La Reina del Sur premiered in the Philippines on TV5 dubbed in Filipino.

US ratings

Awards and nominations

Remake

An English language remake, Queen of the South, premiered in June 2016 on USA Network, starring Alice Braga.^[5][6]

References

External links

• La Reina del Sur at the Internet Movie Database