Der Chinese

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.

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 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.

I will start by saying that I am a big fan of Swedish film (both movie & TV), as well as loving some of Mankell's other screen adaptations... mainly the Wallander series' (Swedish version). So, by seeing Nyqvist 2nd billed (one of my favorite Nordic actors), Mankell, the production company and main filming location... I naturally expected most of the spoken language to be Swedish. You can imagine how shocked I was when they started up in German! For me, this was very difficult to adjust to. German is a very harsh language to listen to (and I am part German) but more than that, it simply did NOT make sense to have the entire film spoken and dubbed in German. I found myself trying to figure out who was really speaking and who was being dubbed so much that I ended up missing a lot of the English sub-titles. For the record, I don't speak SE or DE... only know a few words in each language. So what I THINK i finally figured out was this... the German actors were speaking German, the Chinese actors were probably speaking Chinese but were dubbed in German (really freaky). What was baffling to me was Nyqvuist... at first it seemed his lips were matching the German being spoken, but then later it did not seem to match up, and to be honest, it didn't sound like his voice to me. I would have to guess then that he was actually speaking Swedish and they dubbed in the German. Just an overall disaster language wise and it really did detract from the movie, at least for me. Without this, I would have easily given this 8 stars as the plot & acting was excellent, as well as some stunning location filming... especially in Stockholm, one of the world's most spectacular looking cities! I'd say that this is well worth a watch for any fan of crime thrillers, Mankell, or just good solid foreign films. One really funny thing I noticed in one scene... you had Nyqvuist, Borsody (the lead character), and a Chinese actor having a 3-way discussion. If my assumptions were correct, they were speaking 3 different languages through the entire scene... that must have been a very bizarre situation indeed! ;)

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."