I admit that the original is not good-looking (perhaps a translation problem), its text is poor and boring and cumbersome. It should be a fascinating climax. Some authors are just plain and straightforward, without any emotional ups and downs. But the story is quite exciting. The characters are numerous and the events are intertwined. Every character is indispensable. Often when the case is deadlocked, this previously inconspicuous character becomes an important clue and makes the case brighter, and every incident has its own space. Or the intersection of time and interspersed, which makes the case progress in layers. The important thing is that this is not just a suspenseful mystery with meticulous thinking, it can even be regarded as a genre painting of American society at that time. However, the movie deletes all the ancillary details, and even the basic dahlia case is greatly reduced. Not to mention the essence of the original work, even a glimpse of the fur.
In the original book, Mr. Zhong Bing is the clue figure of the case. Through the investigation of the case, he pieced together all the whereabouts of the dahlia on the day of the death. There are rigorous logical reasoning and clues discovered by accidental coincidence. When the case is getting closer to the truth Da Bai, he finally realized that he had been led by the nose and used as a pawn. So the helplessness, cowardice, anger and despair suppressed during the investigation process finally broke out at the last moment, and he became the final character in the cracked case.
The original work spans several years in time, and one can imagine the hardship. The movie has been simplified into an uncomplicated murder case. A large number of adaptations and deletions made the film pale and weak. For example, in the work, Mr. Huo fled to Mexico. In order to cover up that he was the mastermind of the bank robbery, he hired Mexican police to kill the gangster who was framed and imprisoned by him, and finally died in Mexico. The importance of this description can be seen. In the movie, he was completely deleted and portrayed in such a way that he did not reflect the original characters' wandering and struggling between good and evil. The tampering of the ending is unbearable. The noblewoman who killed the dahlia in the original work was not brought to justice. Mr. Bing lost his police career on which he lived due to his negligence and violation of the law in the process of solving the case. The near-broken love story has no ending. The film turns the thought-provoking into the completeness of everything, which completely loses the shocking power that the work itself should have.
In addition, the original work involves the bitterness and helplessness of the lower-level policemen, the shady scandals of the profit-trading among the upper-level policemen, the spiritual emptiness and erosion of the upper-class nobles, and the social scandals such as incest, adultery, pedophilia, sexual abuse, etc. It's all passed by one generation or not mentioned at all. The various emotional conflicts between the characters, Mr. Huo’s guilt evasion for his missing sister, Mr. Bing’s guilt to make up for his old father, the planting and jealousy among police colleagues, and Mr. Bing’s and Mr. Huo’s life and death and humiliation. At the turn of the day, Dahlia's naivety and sad life experience were also weakened to the utmost extent.
For the greatly shrunken dahlia, it is better to read the original work than to watch a movie.
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