Flutter video player not initialized

I'm trying to use Video Player but it doesn't seem to initialize.
Here is my code:

  late VideoPlayerController _controller;

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();
    _controller = VideoPlayerController.network(
        'https://flutter.github.io/assets-for-api- 
              docs/assets/videos/bee.mp4')
        ..initialize().then((_) {
           setState(() {});
       }
    );
  }

  Widget _playView(BuildContext context) {
    if (_controller != null && _controller.value.isInitialized) {
      return Expanded(
       child: Container(
         child: VideoPlayer(_controller),
       ),
     );
    } else {
       return Text('Loading video');
    }
  }
  //end of _playView

The play _playView is called inside A Row() widget (into the main Container of the page)
It always goes in the else statement and so i always see the 'Loading video' Text.
I don't get any errors. I've tried the code from various sources (docs, youtube) but nothing works.
I've also added the Internet permission in the AndroidManifest.xml.
The plugin used is this one https://pub.dev/packages/video_player

I was able to reproduce the issue when trying to play the video in the initState method after initializing the _controller:

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();

    _controller = VideoPlayerController.network(
        'https://flutter.github.io/assets-for-api-docs/assets/videos/bee.mp4')
      ..initialize().then((_) {
        setState(() {});
        _controller.play(); // adding this
      });
  }

It always goes to the else statement (return Text('Loading video');).

To resolve it, I declared a custom flag for notifying the _controller initialization instead of relying on its (_controller.value.isInitialized) property:

bool _controllerInitialized = false;

  @override
  void initState() {
    super.initState();

    _controller = VideoPlayerController.network(
        'https://flutter.github.io/assets-for-api-docs/assets/videos/bee.mp4')
      ..initialize().then((_) {
        setState(() {
          _controllerInitialized = true;
        });
        _controller.play();
      });
  }

Hence, you could render the video player when _controllerInitialized is true:

_controllerInitialized
          ? AspectRatio( // here is your Expanded widget...
              aspectRatio: _controller.value.aspectRatio,
              child: VideoPlayer(_controller),
            )
          : const Text('Loading video'),

Note that the video will play automatically, you could stop it by removing _controller.play(); from the initState method.