Der Chinese

I have no idea what the other reviewers were doing while this movie was on but none seem to have watched it. I have come to expect great things form the movies that Michael Nyqvist is in. This one is no exception. It deals with an event that is so believable, I'd bet it is a depiction of an actual event.

The movie is a treatment of a single historical event that many of us did not get in school - the building of the Central Pacific Railway! Since I live near Truckee and Reno, it was really fun for me. The event took place over 150 years ago and is reaching its conclusion in this movie. Of course there are subtitles - it takes place on 3 continents! The casting is excellent, the costumes are accurate (or they look like it) and the plot is so amazingly complex yet simple. You can really sink your mind into it. Not one minute of boredom for me.

They give you enough of a hint at the beginning of the movie so you are not lost. I always hate it when a movie leaves you wondering what the heck this is about and when you find out, you have to see the movie a couple more times just to figure it out. No in this one - I suspected what happened at the beginning and really enjoyed how it slowly developed - FOR 3 HOURS! Great rainy day movie - although it is snowing here.

This is an odd thriller. The beginning is gripping-a terrible mass murder on quiet Swedish farm. A judge presiding in a rape case. On the other side of the globe, Chinese billionaires involved in something nefarious. Will it all come together? Well... after three hours, you will see characters and plot lines created and then forgotten, other characters implausibly inserted, and some incredibly strange developments. Oh, and everyone is speaking German, often dubbed. This includes all the Chinese people in Beijing, an American sheriff in Nevada, and the population of Sweden. The villains are a bit cartoonish, and the suspense is sometimes improbable, but I still stuck it out to the end. I just wish it had been a little shorter and a little less farfetched.

I never considered Henning Mankell a bad writer, but if this movie was adapted from his books, then he's not good enough to be called one of the best novelists from Scandinavian countries, not in the least. It's obvious that Henning Mankell were not familiar with anything about China, because this novel clearly showed that he didn't know jacksh@t about China and the Chinese people, everything he wrote was just by hearsay and imagination. Then even more unfortunately, this TV movie was adapted by an even moronic screenplay writer, and then further messed up by an even worse director.

The whole setting of this movie just looked funny, weird, outdated and contradictory. The era, the time sequences, the localities....what exactly was the time frame? Before 1980? Early 1980? Early 1990? Or early 2000? Because China had changed so rapidly, every decade after 1980 was totally different.But whatever you could come up during and after you have watched, simply felt contrite, stupid and exaggerated. The most ridiculous scenes were those to do with China and the Chinese, not just the Chinese in this movie speaking German. Almost everything in this movie related to China or the Chinese, just looked absurd and wrong. The shitty hotel, the crappy restaurant, the two brother and sister, and in that particular town were just laughable big jokes that just came out of the 19th century. The only thing I felt most a bit lucky during watching was about the novelist, the screenplay writer and the director, who at least didn't make the Chinese people still look like they were in 200 years ago's Chin Dynasty. Henning Mankell and the production team of this movie seemed to just follow Hollywood's stupidity and narrow mindness to ridicule everything about China, a permanent stubborn yet stupid stereotyped belief about China and the Chinese people. Even the bribery and the corruption of the brother looked silly and shallow, not even close.

The movie had wasted lot of production budget and manpower on the mass murder scenes from the very beginning, then spent lot of money to shoot some weird scenes of Mainland China, but since the whole scenario and plot simply looked stupid and shallow, you just couldn't buy the dramatic mess at all.

In the second half of the movie, Professor Lund makes the following statement: "A murderous competition broke out between two railroad companies. The one who reached the Pacific first made millions, the other one went bust."

The competition part is totally correct. The following statement is totally wrong. The transcontinental rail line was completed in Utah, with the two companies working toward each other. No "reached the Pacific first" about it.

Here's the History.com explanation: "The Pacific Railroad Act stipulated that the Central Pacific Railroad Company would start building in Sacramento and continue east across the Sierra Nevada, while a second company, the Union Pacific Railroad, would build westward from the Missouri River, near the Iowa-Nebraska border.

The two lines of track would meet in the middle (the bill did not designate an exact location) and each company would receive 6,400 acres of land (later doubled to 12,800) and $48,000 in government bonds for every mile of track built. From the beginning, then, the building of the transcontinental railroad was set up in terms of a competition between the two companies."

If you enjoy reading Henning Mankell, you'll love this. The characters felt real and the plot unfolded just as I hoped it would. I also think the screenplay writer did an amazing job of bringing the screenplay down to a manageable size, otherwise this two part mini-series would have gone to more than six hours.

This adaptation captures the original feelings and focus of the novel, the actors did a good job, and the director had a firm grasp of the material and how to best present it.

I completely enjoyed watching this in one sitting, and the slightly more than 3 hours just seemed to fly by. I have no hesitation recommending this to you at all.

Now I'm looking forward to rereading the novel again, followed by another viewing of the film.