PiraBit
if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.
Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Der Chinese" or "The Chinese Man" or "The Chinese" or "The Man from Beijing" is a German television movie / mini-series that consists of two episodes of 90 minutes each. It is one of the more known works by director Peter Keglevic. The screenplay is by father and daughter Breinersdorfer, who adapted a Henning Mankell novel here. It is a small screen movie from 2011, so this one had its 5th anniversary last year. It is basically all about Suzanne von Borsody and I am not sure she is good enough to carry this film for such a massive runtime. Michael Nyqvist, Claudia Michelsen and Jimmy Taenaka have some screen time too and they may be the most known cast members here. I personally like Nyqvist, but sadly the material he was given here was just not good enough for him to truly make a difference. With the exception of the Asian actor in the center of it all, everybody just felt like a vehicle for von Borsody and the fact that she did not receive any awards attention at all says that they should have gone for another actress probably as the character was surely as baity as it gets.This is the story of a female judge who finds her family murdered by a mysterious Asian male. It clearly is something personal in here. The entire film then is about her getting to the core of the problem and many flashbacks are included that lead us back many centuries and explain the background and motivation behind these murders. Now I think there are some good moments and this one here certainly gets better the longer it goes. The second 1.5 hours were certainly better than the first as honestly the only somewhat memorable aspect of the first 90 minutes is really the ending with the broken glass and it's a nice indicator of the rise in quality about to happen. But still overall, I was disappointed here. I think at 90-100 minutes with focus on the right scenes this could have been a really good outcome, maybe even a ****/***** with a better lead actress. But the path they too was just not right. It's overlong, shoddy in terms of focus and plot on quite a few occasions and there are characters in it that just add nothing to the film except duration, maybe necessary to reach the 3-hour mark (or come close to it as it's actually a couple minutes shorter). So yeah, while there are a handful strong moments, I must say that the negative outweighs the positive and as a consequence I give this film a thumbs-down. Not recommended. Or not enthusiastically at least. Unless you have an interest in a mix of Chinese/American history as this area is one where it somehow taught me something new really, even if there is also no elaboration in depth about the railway workers discrimination, apart from throwing in that it existed. Just one example of how the basics are good for this film, but the details and in-depth elaboration leave a lot to be desired. Watch something else instead.
ikanboy
Everybody speaks German, even the Chinese and Yanks, but they're supposed to be speaking Swedish. The plot is over the top and riddled with ludicrous plot holes. 19 people get slaughtered in one village, some 4-5 at a time and they arrest a guy playing music in one of the houses who has no blood on him, and who stuck around? The bad guy gets shot 2-3 times, yet manages to leave the country? Our heroine chases him to china....to do what exactly? When she finds him she runs. She gets her purse stolen but returned by a stranger who knows she is Swedish and speaks the language, and she doesn't catch on? Worst of all Michael Nykvist gets to do nothing but act as concerned husband. The Swedish cop insists on fingering an innocent despite mounting evidence to the contrary, until he commits suicide, then she admits he's innocent. Who vetted, or didn't this crap?
Rogermex
I read the book by Henning Mankell and hoped for something better, because I very much admire his work. But this director hasn't a clue. The acting is atrocious. Not to mention that it's a very weird experience to watch Asians conversing in Swedish (not that there's anything wrong with that!).The director seems to think that he heightens the thriller aspects by showing panoramas of Beijing. Huh? And in a supposed climactic scene, how are we to believe that the dedicated assassin comes charging at his target only to cudgel her with his blade in a scabbard, leaving minutes of dumb action so the policewoman has time to arrive and shoot him just before the unsheathed blade is to do its work? I doubt that's what was in the book, but if it was it was also as stupid as the heroine reaching behind her back, finding one last bullet and loading the conveniently placed gun while the other killer just stares (maybe has a cookie) and gives her time to shoot him.This is a real stinker, to be avoided.
birck
This film is made up of spare parts, but it's still an improvement on the book. It appears that, in turning a book into a movie, it is possible to substitute good acting and production values for sloppy writing. The first 20-odd pages of the book were well-done, and that is replicated in the film. The first 30 minutes or so show a horrific murder scene, and introduce two good, well-acted female characters clashing over the investigation. Near the end of that sequence, the Chinese connection is made, and all credibility goes out the window. The evidence of a Chinese connection is frail & tenuous, but, OK, the scene shifts to Beijing, where we meet a comic-book Chinese villain who is, of course, ruthless, wealthy & powerful for no apparent reason. Actually, "ruthless" can be explained-for the story's purposes-by a violent, xenophobic assault suffered by his father when he was laying track for American railways in the 1860s. This wealthy & powerful guy is maybe 40-45 years old? You do the math. Fortunately,the filmmaker,who is Austrian, opted to omit the book's section set in Africa, which contained some real howlers, and he chooses to end it with the central figure, a Swedish judge, arriving safely back in Stockholm. One peculiarity of this film that can't be blamed on the book's author is the treatment of language. For the US print, of course, the subtitles are in English, but in spite of the settings, i.e., Sweden, China, and very briefly the US, every character on screen speaks German. The Chinese characters are dubbed in German, the lone American character actually speaks good German, and all the Swedes speak serviceable German. Maybe it was made for Austrian TV. Whatever the reason, it was jarring to see Chinese characters, in a subtitled film, delivering lines in German. Another good reason to avoid the scenes set in Africa.
