A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms swops high thrones for lowbrow humour, and it works

A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms

HBO Max
★★★★☆

If the mediaeval fantasy Game Of Thrones (2011 to 2019) and its prequel House Of The Dragon (2022 to present) are sprawling canvases, then A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms – also set in the universe created by American author George R.R. Martin – is a close-up portrait.

Set about 90 years before the events of Game Of Thrones and 80 years after House Of The Dragon, the story follows Duncan The Tall, known in Martin’s world as a hedge knight, a wandering fighter seeking a home and a higher position in the world.

Irish actor Peter Claffey plays Dunk, short for Duncan, a character falling into the familiar television narrative of a hero who moves from place to place, avoiding trouble, but attracting it anyway.

Aegon, nicknamed Egg, a squire played by 11-year-old British actor Dexter Sol Ansell, joins him.

In Episode 1, released on Jan 19, the show’s creators made clear it is nothing like its sombre sister shows. It will take itself far less seriously. In an early scene, as the stirring Game Of Thrones theme plays, Dunk is shown excreting noisily behind a tree.

The pilot does a great job setting up audience expectations for the rest of the season. The writing is tight and pacey, with Claffey’s Dunk a lovable lunkhead acting as a strong counterweight to Ansell’s precociously clever Egg.

HBO knows it has captured magic: A second season has been announced.

The Pitt 2

HBO Max

Just a year after the airing of the Emmy-winning first season, the medical procedural set in a Pittsburgh trauma centre has returned on Jan 9.

There is pressure on executive producer and star Noah Wyle, who plays Dr Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, to meet or exceed the standards set by the first season. The show, within each of its 15 episodes, documents an hour in a 15-hour shift.

In technique, the winning elements are back. This season, like the last, is set over a holiday that spikes emergency arrivals – July 4, Independence Day, a time when fireworks and alcohol mix.

The ensemble cast is back, including Wyle as Dr Robby, Katherine LaNasa as charge nurse Dana Evans, Supriya Ganesh as resident Dr Samira Mohan and breakout star Taylor Dearden as the neurodivergent Dr Melissa King.

As shown in the early episodes, everyone is as usual under-resourced and over-stressed. Things break. Yet, in the midst of apparent chaos, their competency shines. A third season has been confirmed.

Us And Them (PG13)

Netflix

Those in need of a cathartic cry over the Chinese New Year holidays can seek out this romantic tearjerker. This is the directorial debut of Taiwanese singer-actress Rene Liu that broke the box record for a female film-maker in China after its release there in 2018.

This movie is timely now because the couple at its heart – Jing Boran’s Lin Jianqing and Zhou Dongyu’s Fang Xiaoxiao – meet cute over the chunyun (literally “spring transport”) travel rush that takes place around Chinese New Year.

Also, the South Korean remake, Once We Were Us, is in cinemas here from Jan 22. Like the Chinese original, it was a hit in its home country on its release in late December 2025.

Jianqing and Xiaoxiao are both headed to Beijing with a head full of dreams. After an upbeat opening, the story flashes forward a decade, when both meet by chance – again, during chunyun – and begin picking over their shared past to see how it all went wrong.

There is no blame, only the bittersweet realisation that being young, broke and drunk on love is a combination that brings giddy heights of joy, with crushing lows of disappointment.