Although producer Chen Guofu said that Di Renjie was the subject he wanted to shoot ten years ago, the appearance of "Di Renjie: The Empire of Heaven" at this time still makes people have a "follow the trend" view of it. You know, reasoning works are now the most popular topics on earth. In the West represented by the United States and the East represented by Japan, novels and film and television works of detective reasoning have been published in the past two years, and they have far-reaching influence. As a China that lacks the tradition of reasoning, when it is our turn to play the cards, Di Renjie is almost the only straw that can be caught. If you want to follow the trend, who else will you leave behind?
But it should be pointed out that although mystery novels have a large number of readers, it is a difficult task to successfully replicate them on the big screen. For example, the two works starring actor Tom Hanks-"The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons", although based on super best-sellers, have been unsuccessful in word of mouth; last year's "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons" Sherlock Holmes makes people only see the muscles of Sherlock Holmes and the ambiguity between him and his assistant Watson. Pushing the history of movies forward, there are very few classic detective and reasoning films that can be collected, nothing more than "Murder on the Nile" and "Murder on the Orient Express". In contrast, TV shows are more successful. Not to mention, in the past two years alone, the American drama "A Thousand Lies", the Japanese drama "Detective Galileo", and our Liang Guanhua version of "Detective Di Renjie", one, two, three or four, all have a broad mass base.
Let's think about it, why is this? I think this is because the subject matter of criminal reasoning is inherently suitable for long-form works. It needs enough plot arrangement and enough detail to entangle the audience's heart in the branches and then get more and more confused. It also needs a clean and pure structure. Detecting a case is a case, and everything else can only be embellishments. It must not be overwhelming, and the audience must be able to concentrate. And the length of the film is very small, if the director's ambition is slightly inflated, it is easy to screw up.
In this way, we can understand why Tsui Hark's version of Di Renjie is not enjoyable enough. In this two-hour film, we will see Di Renjie's life experience, the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty, and the passionate play of Andy Lau and Li Bingbing. On top of that, we'll see flashy and chaotic fights, bug and fire stunts, and spectacles of giant Buddha statues. It seems that only in this way can we have the feeling of watching a blockbuster and the satisfaction that is worth the fare. But in this way, the cause and effect of the investigation, the details, and the psychological struggle, how many minutes are left to show them one by one?
It is the concept of the so-called "blockbuster" that ruined the wonderful Di Renjie. As everyone knows, those so-called big scenes, in the eyes of the audience who are accustomed to watching Hollywood blockbusters, can only be tricks and ingenuity, not worth a groan. We obviously expected an exquisite reasoning film, why did we see a cheap stunt film?
At this point, last year's "The Wind" can be used as a positive example. "The Sound of the Wind" has no side-scrolling details. It gets to the point from the very beginning. A team of people enters the castle and immediately begins the "killing game". In a fixed, closed scene, the development of the plot is entirely driven by the details, which stick to the main line and create a tight tension. Although there is no big scene, it can also make people feel irritated. The reason why American and Japanese reasoning dramas are popular is because of their compactness and purity. You don't need to spend a lot of time to introduce the background of the story, and you don't need love and fights to spoil the situation. All you need to pay attention to is the crime scene, the appearance of the suspect, the detective's reasoning, and the murderer.
Those scalp-numbing bugs turned the reasoning film into a horror film; the white-haired Deng Chao's kung fu fighting turned the reasoning film into a martial arts film. The only surprise was that when Carina Lau dressed up as a lady for the night party Andy Lau, people suddenly thought that the thirteenth aunt in "Once Upon a Time" was reborn. But when we come back to our senses and realize that the characters in front of us are actually Wu Zetian and Di Renjie, we can't help but feel a little frustrated. Once upon a time, Tsui Hark's films can make us firmly remember Wong Fei-hung, Jin Xiangyu, Nie Xiaoqian, and Xiao Ma. But in "Di Renjie", we only see Andy Lau who has been like one for decades, Carina Lau who is well maintained, and Li Bingbing who is very beautiful in ancient costumes. As for what kind of person Di Renjie is, our impressions are either vague, or we still stubbornly stay on the plump Liang Guanhua.
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