As far as my expectations for Hong Kong films are concerned, Di Renjie Tongtian Empire is still pretty good. The scenes of the film are very bold and pleasing to the eye, with bright colors; the characters are distinctive, especially the character played by the handsome Deng Chao; the lines are not as boring as many Hong Kong films, they are quite decent, and even have some humanistic spirit, in my opinion , at least compared to the "Confucius" that felt good about itself at the beginning of the year, it is more natural and sincere; the most important thing is that the plot is reasonable and reasonable, and the murderer is exposed just right at the end, but it may not have been seen before. The standard for detective suspense films.
In the minds of most Chinese people today, Di Renjie is a Sherlock Holmes Poirot-style detective, but he lives in the Tang Dynasty and wears clothes from that era. In contrast, his historical image as a high-ranking official, politician and minister is not very conspicuous. The reason for such a situation is largely due to a foreigner: the Dutchman Gorope. He is a career diplomat who worked at the Dutch embassy in Chongqing during the Republic of China. He is familiar with, loves and even fascinated by Chinese culture, is also proficient in Chinese, and married a Chinese woman. "Gao Luopei" is the Chinese name he gave himself, not a transliteration of his real name in the general sense. In his spare time, he edited a "Compilation of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Appreciation", introduced Chinese painting and calligraphy works to the West, and translated the Qingren Gongan novel "The Four Great Cases of Wu Zetian" into English. Some call him an alternative amateur sinologist. Galloper's most famous achievement is his "Detective Digong Collection". In this work, he refers to some historical materials and koan novels in China, and with his rich imagination and creativity, he tells the story of Duke Di's analysis and reasoning based on clues, and then cracks the mystery and finds the murderer. Not only is the novel similar in style and content to the works of Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, but it is also very similar in form: each detective story is a separate piece, unconnected to each other. There are about 20 such stories. "Detective Cases of Di Gong" was later translated into Chinese and published in China. I borrowed it when I was in middle school. Because the time is too far apart, the specific stories have long been forgotten. I only remember that in each story, there is a major case, plus several small cases related to it, which are full of suspense and thrills. Recently, I saw the latest Chinese translation of this novel at Popular Bookstore, which also includes a portrait of the author and life photos of Gao Luopei.
In the past 30 years, it was Gao Luopei's "Detective Cases of Di Gong" that made many Chinese today know about Di Renjie. Most people would not be interested in history, not to mention, Di Renjie is not a person who has a great influence in history.) At the same time, it also makes him more of a case-solving expert in people's minds than an expert in solving crimes. The traditional high-ranking officials. Almost all of the recent film and television works about Di Gong follow the mode of Gao Luopei's detective novels. The most conspicuous of them should be "Detective Di Renjie" starring Fatty Liang Guanhua. Borrowing the fashionable name of the American drama, the show has been broadcast for 4 seasons, and the fourth season just finished airing not long ago. In the play, the fat Digong wearing a Tang costume always ended up like the little Belgian Poirot in "The Nile Massacre", calling in people related to the case to analyze and explain the case to everyone in a straightforward manner and point out the truth. Although there are some "Chinese characteristics" in the play, such as occasionally interspersed with funny lectures about honesty and caring for the people and gorgeous but non-existent fancy martial arts, the center is still the suspenseful reasoning that prevails in detective novels.
An interesting phenomenon, whether it is "Tongtian Empire", "Detective Di Renjie", or other film and television works, although Di Renjie is portrayed as a detective, the writers and directors seem to be reluctant to use the stories created by Gao Luopei. to a point. From memory I feel that the story of the novel is more twisty and tense than what they made up. People who read novels are already far lower than those who watch movies and TV. The stories in Gao Luopei's novels are far from being household names. Even in today's China, the popularity of the stories is definitely not comparable to the legend of Sherlock Holmes and Poirot. In this sense, Galloper's "Detective Di Gong" is a treasure to be discovered. If the director of "Empire of Babel" can make more use of it, the story will undoubtedly be more exciting and the film will be better.
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