Let's be realistic.

Absolutely amazing

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

"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.

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! ;)

The movie slowly but surely develops historic context. The historic context is of vital importance for the whole movie to make sense. Unfortunately, it is a big disappointment. The characterization is so simplified that the historic scenes are simply not believable. The characterization of the historic person is so black and white, it is child like. It is a simple vehicle for the movie makers to express their untempered hate towards Christianity.If you watch the movie, also look out for the probability of some of the characters to meet again later, or for the probability of the final act of the heroine, simply unbelievable. Not nuanced enough. Too simplistic. Disappointing.