Sin Senos no hay Paraíso | |
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Format | Romance, Exploitation, Telenovela |
Created by | Gustavo Bolivar |
Developed by | Telemundo Studios and RTI Colombia |
Directed by | Miguel Varoni Ramiro Meneses |
Starring | Carmen Villalobos Catherine Siachoque María Fernanda Yépez |
Theme music composer | Héctor Cardona Jr. |
Opening theme | "Sin Senos no hay Paraíso Performed by Natalia Gutiérrez & Hernán Saraza" |
Country of origin | Colombia United States |
Language(s) | Spanish |
No. of episodes | 175 [1] |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Hugo León Ferrer Mary-Kathryn Kennedy |
Editor(s) | José Luis Varón |
Location(s) | Bogotá, Giradot, Durango |
Camera setup | Multi-camera |
Running time | 42 minutes |
Broadcast | |
Original channel | Telemundo |
Picture format | HDTV, 1080i |
Audio format | Stereophonic sound |
Original run | June 16, 2008 – June 22, 2009 |
Chronology | |
Preceded by | Pecados Ajenos |
Followed by | Victorinos |
Related shows | Without Breasts There Is No Paradise |
Sin Senos no hay Paraíso (Without Breasts There Is No Paradise) is a RTI Colombia–Telemundo remake and loose adaptation of the original Colombian series Sin Tetas No Hay Paraíso . The series is based on investigative journalist Gustavo Bolivar's debut novel and features an attractive young prostitute who desires to have massive breast implants in order to attract a rich cocaine smuggler. It is also based on a true story. The series premiered on June 16, 2008;[2] its debut drew 749,000 adults aged 18 to 49, making it one of the network's most-watched premieres ever.
Contents |
Catalina Santana (Carmen Villalobos), a young woman in Pereira, Colombia, is willing to risk everything in order to escape the poverty she lives in and fulfill her dreams - even if this means putting her life and her integrity in jeopardy. Her mother Hilda (Catherine Siachoque), a lovely hard working woman with no resources to provide her children with luxuries, expends boundless energy in her efforts to push both her children, Catalina and Bayron (Juan Diego Sánchez) to prosper. In spite of their mother's efforts, Byron and Catalina's situation is filled with poverty and need.
Catalina is beautiful, but not as voluptuous as her friends who render sexual services as "call girls" to powerful men in the drug trafficking world. Yésica "La diabla" (María Fernanda Yépez), Catalina's best friend, entered the world of "call girls" with her own business: recruiting, selecting, and leading groups of women for whom the drug traffickers pay in advance to receive sexual services. Yesica introduces Catalina to this culture, convincing her that this is the only way she has to get away from her poverty. Once inside, Catalina falls into the manipulative hands of Lorena (Aylín Mújica), Yesica's equivalent in México, who together with Martinez, an important member of the Juarez Cartel, convinces inexperienced young women from Colombia to undergo breast surgery as a means of obtaining a better life in another country. What they don't know is that in reality he uses them as "mules", sending them to Mexico while smuggling cocaine in their implants.
Catalina, dazzled by a world of riches and a life full of luxuries, decides not to continue her relationship with her boyfriend Albeiro, a young man from her town who has very few ambitions, but loves her with all his heart. She decides to search for someone who can pay for or finance her surgery of silicon breast implants since, according to her belief, this will provide her the fame and wealth she longs for.
In the end, Catalina begins to remember how hard her life has been since she became a pre-paid girl - having an illegal abortion due to being raped by three men, the struggles she faced in order to get her breast augmented and the loss of her breast implants due to medical complications, the death of her brother Bayron, finding out that her mother and Albeiro (her boyfriend), were having a romantic relationship behind her back which resulted in her mother becoming pregnant, finally getting kicked out of her own house by Marcial her drug-dealer husband, after Yésica betrayed her and told Marcial that Catalina had lied to him (when in reality she felt disgust towards him) as well as the fact that she had a boyfriend back home who had cheated on her with her own mother. Overall she is left feeling lost, forgotten, betrayed and alone. All these events cause Catalina to lose the will to live, and she tries to commit suicide but does not find the courage to pull through, so she decides to seek revenge and kill Yésica for betraying her by inviting Yésica to a café and calling the hired killers, giving them the directions that Yésica is dressed a certain way and sitting at a table by herself reading a book. The killers do their job and kill the girl by shooting her three times in the back, later to be shown that the girl killed is Catalina, who had a change of mind; that instead of killing Yésica, she decided to plot her own assassination instead by disguising herself as Yésica. Before getting killed, Catalina wrote in the book she was holding the line which gave the series its title, "It's a lie - without breasts there is NO paradise."
Gustavo Bolivar's heroine is a prepago, or "pre-paid girl", which means she sells her services around-the-clock for a set period, hoping to make extra money. [3] The screenwriter says Paraíso highlights an unflattering part of his country: teenagers in the Colombian narco-culture getting breast implants. According to Bolivar, he didn't imagine it would come to touch on a universal theme: "beauty based in vanity and its connection with money" and noted that no other book had denounced the drug dealers in such bad terms, the ignorant mothers who confuse love for their daughters with pimping, and the unscrupulous plastic surgeons.[4]
Bolívar says the story is based on real-life conditions facing child prostitutes in the province (departamento) of Putumayo, Colombia. There he met two girls who were desperate for silicone breast implants. One told him that she got her operation in exchange for sex. Unfortunately, the doctor used a pair of used implants that led to allergic reactions and infection.[3]
Telemundo began shooting the series at Telemundo's production centers in Bogotá and Girardot, Colombia, as well as its studio in Sinaloa, Mexico, on April 15, 2008. As with most of its soap operas, the network broadcast English subtitles as closed captions on CC3 until late October, when the network briefly canceled the translations. Captions were restored the following April. A version with on-screen English subtitles debuted on Mun2 in 2009.
Main Cast in Order of Appearance
Actor | Character | Known as |
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Carmen Villalobos | Catalina Santana | Main heroine, aspires to be an actress |
Catherine Siachoque | Hilda Santana | Catalina and Bayron's mother, later she is in love with Albeiro |
María Fernanda Yépez | Yésica "La diabla" Franco | Catalina's best friend, villain, boss of the pre-paid girls |
Aylín Mújica | Lorena Magallanes | Works with Martínez; mother of Julieta |
Juan Diego Sánchez | Bayron Santana | Hilda's son; Catalina's brother who's hired as a hitman |
Fabián Ríos | Albeiro Manrique | Catalina's long term boyfriend and later Hilda's lover |
Gregorio Pernía | Aurelio "Titi" Jaramillo | Drug dealer; in love with Catalina; villain |
Guillermo Quintanilla | Benjamin "Mariño" Martínez García | Works with Lorena; in love with her |
Alejandra Pinzón | Paola | Catalina's friend; pre-paid girl; wants a deeper relationship with Titi |
Linda Baldrich | Natalia | Trafficked with drugs in breasts; later held captive by Fernando Rey |
Carolina Sepúlveda | Ximena | Catalina's friend; in love with Bayron; pre-paid girl |
Carolina Betancourt | Vanessa | Catalina's friend; pre-paid girl; Jota's ex-girlfriend |
Laura Londoño | Lina Arango | Trafficked with drugs in breasts; later held captive by Fernando Rey |
Sofia Stamatiades | Julieta Riva Palas | Lorena's daughter and then later on J's girlfriend |
Roberto Mateos | José Miguel Cárdenas | Drug dealer; in an American prison |
Gabriel Porras | Fernando Rey | Drug dealer and friend of Martínez; villain |
Ramiro Meneses | Ramiro Duque / "Hombre Oscuro" | Drug dealer |
Danilo Santos | Cardona | Chief of Titi; partner of Morón; in prison |
Alí Humar | Pablo Morón | Chief of the drug dealers |
Juan Pablo Shuk | Mauricio Contento | Colombian surgeon who implants drugs in augmented breasts |
César Mora | Marcial Sánchez | Catalina's former husband; Yésica's husband |
Nestor Alfonso Rojas | Caballo | One of the three who raped Catalina, Martinez's Partner,is Dead |
Rafael Uribe Ochoa | Orlando | One of the three who raped Catalina, Martinez's partner,is Dead |
Víctor Rodríguez | Jorge | One of the three who raped Catalina, Martinez's partner |
Jorge Sánchez | Lambón | Workman of Morón and Cardona |
Emerson Yañez | Balin | Works with Bayron as a hitman; in love with Paola,Dead |
Martha Isabel Bolaños | Margot | "Model" scout who traffics young girls |
Rodrigo Obregón | Robert | Martinez's partner in Los Angeles |
Andrés Martínez | Alberto Bermejo | Cardona's plastic surgeon partner |
Astrid Junguito | Doña Mariela | Mother of Albeiro |
Edmundo Troya | Don Antonio | Chief of the bikini fabric, is Dead |
Neru | Black Man in the bar | |
Sigifredo Vega | Director | Director of the high school, father of Natalia; in prison |
Gustavo Yañez | Sadhanii | Under cover DEA detective, and Chief of Cardona in California |
Maria Margarita Giraldo | wife of director of the college, Natalia's mother | |
Jhon Mario Rivera | Don Jairo | Bordel owner |
Manuel Busquet | Director of the underwear fabric "Vanessa" | |
Moises Cadavid | Benjamin | Yesica's friend in Bogota |
Paula Barreto | friend of Yésica, actress | |
Germán Arias | Police at the airport | |
Jairo Sanabria | Police at the airport | |
Cristian Tappan | Octavio | Yessica's friend, congresist in Bogota, in love with Catalina |
Manuel Pachon | Priest | |
Mónica Pardo | Cristina | Raped by director of high school; pregnant |
Jose Omar Murillo | Pelambre | Henchman of Marcial; in love with Catalina |
Francisco Bolivar | Jota | |
Maria Leon Arias | Griselda | Antonio's wife |
Sharmel Altamirano | Plane Stewardess | |
Alvaro Garcia | Bonifacio | Miss Chica Linda's corrupted manager |
Monica Uribe | Marcela | Titi's girlfriend |
Karen Licet Manjarrez | herself | colombian singer |
Julio del Mar | Beauty peagant's jury | |
Herber King | Cristina's father | |
Margarita Duran | Cristina's mother | |
Alejandro Rodriguez | Salgado | |
Julian Alvarez | man in the bar | |
Sebastian Boscan | Catalina's doctor | |
Natalia Giraldo | Moda Colombia's Organizer | |
Ivette Zamora | Titi's mother | |
Alejandro Tamayo | man who involved Titi in drugdealering | |
Andrea Villareal | journalist against Hilda | |
Luis Fernando Salas | Urquia | DEA agent |
Alfredo Aneher | DEA agent | |
Jackeline Aristizabal | Gonzalez | Police Agent |
Ana Beatriz Osorio | Roxana Pinilla | DEA agent |
NBC Universal commissioned Universal Media Studios to produce an English language version of the serial, using a different cast and script.[5]
The episode debuted in June 2008 with nearly 750,000 viewers adults 18 to 49, per Nielsen Media Research. By August, the series had reached 949,000 adults, constituting a 31% share of the Spanish language television networks of the week. The series averaged nearly 1.9 million 18-to-49 viewers in November. However, the series lost a big part of its audience dropping to 1.1 million 18-to-49 viewers in April 2009 and prefessional reviews from magazines like TV y Novelas dropped from scores of mostly tens and nines during the success peak of the series to an all-time low score of five out of ten. The series ended with a rating of eight.
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