RSS Feed
The Incredible (and Filmable) Di Renjie
Hollywood is now run by twelve- year- olds. Twelve- year- olds with underactive imaginations. Aside from guinea pigs solving international crimes, we’ve had the umpteenth installation of wiz-kid Larry Porter and a remake of GI Joe to get us through the summer. We haven’t had any notable historical semi-fiction since 300. So CEX hereby makes a broad pitch for the story of Di Renjie.
Di Renjie, equal parts Judge Roy Bean and Eliot Ness, roamed the Old East righting wrongs and tackling injustice at the highest levels. He never needed his family wiped out or partner murdered to pursue justice, the highest ideal of the Confucian scholar he was. The West could use a movie about a refined official who does even more good than a hard-boiled cop.
Di Renjie’s dad was a Prefect in what is now Chongqing. In a less rigorous government, this would have guaranteed Di Renjie a position of authority. But children of Tang officials were designated a lower rank, which they had to overcome through merit. Police Academy can be tough, what with all the target practice and cop jargon to learn. But Steve Gutenberg himself would have quailed at the Imperial Examinations, which Di Renjie passed with honors to become a prefectural secretary in Henan. A three-minute montage of Di Renjie pouring over scrolls and practicing martial arts would hardly do the accomplishment justice, but then today’s audience starts getting distracted by the second movie preview.
Also, the teenie-bopper demographic might not know what to do with the fact that Di Renjie’s adventures didn’t begin until he was in his mid-forties. At that point, he had worked his way up to secretary general of the Tang Supreme Court, a judge with a caseload of seventeen-thousand a year. Goodness knows how a director could convey the frantic pace of resolving over fifty disputes a day, short of resorting to speeded-up skits, Benny Hill style. Astoundingly, much as with Hill’s opus, no one ever found fault with one of Di Renjie’s decisions.
Despite the many safeguards of Confucian government, peace and prosperity are the ruin of character, and the Tang administration was as corrupt as a rain-soaked log on a termite nest. Gainsaying the wrong official could cost one’s life, but Di Renjie valued his principles over his hide. When a couple of rowdy generals chopped down a few of Emperor Gaozong’s prized cypress trees, their liege ordered them killed. Di Renjie interceded, at grave risk to his own safety, arguing for leniency as passionately as Pacino in And Justice for All. Gaozong relented, and out of respect for Di’s integrity made him a censor, an official who roamed the country making sure governors and magistrates were keeping it honest, or keeping the censors’ palms well-greased.
What do you do with a man who can’t be bought? The Tang Minister of Agriculture couldn’t dissuade Di Renjie from reporting his wastefulness and getting him sacked. Even Wang Benli, one of Emperor Gaozong’s closest buddies, was run over in Di Renjie’s ceaseless drive against malfeasance. Wang, understandably for an Imperial favorite, had been throwing his weight around, treating the law like the flexible courtesan it usually is. The Emperor dismissed Di Renjie’s charges against Wang Benli several times, relenting only in the face of superior will and integrity. Thirteen hundred years before The Untouchables, mind you.
Di Renjie led an army to battle and helped restore the Tang Dynasty from the depredations of Wuzetian, China’s only female emperor, too. But this was when Di Renjie was in his late sixties. Unless Morgan Freeman can be persuaded to put on yellow-face, no elderly Hollywood icon is able to lend Di Renjie the necessary gravitas.
In fact, biographies are notoriously clumsy for their refusal to adhere to a three-act plot. But anyone pshawing the idea of Di Renjie as popular entertainment is already in the wrong. The adventures of Di Renjie were laid out in a popular Ming Dynasty folk novel. Centuries later, China historian Robert van Gulik found a copy in a second-hand bookstore and translated it, calling the book The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee.
Following the story’s commercial success in 1949, van Gulik began turning out Judge Dee mysteries with regularity throughout the fifties and sixties. Traditional Chinese mysteries were misnomers, in that perps and their motives were usually laid out in the beginning of the story, and the action lay in seeing the malefactors brought to justice, usually with the aid of secret-telling ghosts.
Van Gulik employed the traditional western whodunit paradigm to an ancient world he was familiar enough with to bring to life for millions of readers. Each successive story after his first, from The Chinese Maze Murders to Necklace and Calabash, explore broad swaths of old Chinese society, with a healthy yet accurate depiction of sexuality. Concubines and court ladies alike are constantly throwing themselves at Judge Dee, who remains as unmoved by the fairer sex as did Bruce Lee. A Confucian hero is beyond earthly temptations.
Van Gulik’s work generated enough interest to be turned into a short-run TV series in Britain in 1969, and a TV movie in America in 1974. In China, Di Renjie has enjoyed many TV incarnations, his most recent still in syndication on CCTV 8. In fact, a Di Renjie movie is due out in 2010, starring – surprise – Andy Lau, and directed by Hark Tsui. So cancel that pitch. It’d be tough watching Hollywood turn a Confucian hero into a crime-solving panda.
.gif)
Comments
When will he disappear?
Andy Lau could ruin anything - even a Benny Hill chase. Even if he got crotched on a bicycle and the music changed to a 3 second snippet of "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah", he would blow it. That being said, I liked Mo Gong (I think it was "A Battle of Wits" in English) for the first half an hour.
Fair and Justice Judge
China as a country which has great cultures, great infrastructures and also great historycal stories. After i read this great biography, i feel remember about Judge Bao, Judge who always be respect the justice and also fair in handling some law cases. As this story told, whenever one person be as clean person, who against the corruption, the evilness and other trick against the laws, always be hate by the high autority person, who don't want anybody disturb his manner. So i think this biography can be clue and light to make supreme of justice
absolutely free credit report
Van Gulik
I read his work and was impressed not only with the stories but also with his flair for writing calligraphy. A true scholar.
The Incredible (and Filmable) Di Renjie
I think
In Renjie, tackling inequality in the highest level.
Traditional Chinese mystery misnomers on the perps and the motifs that are usually placed at the beginning of the story, and placed the action in view malefactors brought to court, usually with the help of a secret-telling ghosts.
Very good historian Van Gulik works well and is quite interesting that will be the film story TV serial.
Deserve to be honour
Word i can say after i read this biography is impressed. i impressed what he has done for the country. And the important thing he has give valuable lesson for all people in the world, being honest and good person, many chalenge must faced, even so, don't be affraid because your principle and dedication. His dedication i thing deserve to honour, maybe by take his story into movie so people can watch his dedication to the country.
Locksmiths
Learn the dedication
Previously i haven't heard about this Di Renjie, maybe it was because this great person rarely mentioned. After i read this biography i could say that, his courage and his dedication is ispired the reader. It's good that the reader finnaly know him and can learn from his character.
credit cards
The China’s only female emperor
I like the China the story as Di Renjie led an army to battle and helped restore the Tang Dynasty from the depredations of Wuzetian, China’s only female emperor.
I admire about the
I admire about the dedication of Di Renji specially after she had war with Wuzetian. For the next generation it will be memorable and inspire China's women, that they also could be like Di Renjie but maybe in other application, suitable with recent condition. Great story i think.
San Diego car insurance
Story about Di Renji has
Story about Di Renji has good content about the fightness, the heroic and good things that can be followed by next generation. Maybe for whom watched the 3000 movies, will be remained about the the fighting like that in this story, so if there are plans to make this story into movie i willsupport it.
reborn doll
Amen, amen, amen!
I would rather be driving down the road at 60 KM/hour, open the car door, and scrape my face along the pavement than watch ANYTHING featuring Andy Lau.
When, dear Lord, when will mercy be allotted to us by a sealer mistaking Andy Lau for a baby seal and in doing so, put us all out of our misery?
You may be in luck. Lau is
You may be in luck. Lau is slated as lead for a Chinese remake of Nanook of the North.
listen up those arrogant Westerners in China
http://ezralevant.com/2009/08/danone-vs-wahaha.html
i saw an article written by a person named Ezra, i would like to comment on his comments. My comment, to him and to all those westerners living in China, especially those having arrogance which otherwise they would never have back in their small town home countries, is below:
When you talk about Danone v Wahaha, the case is still pending in Stockholm, how could the author knows so much? that is because he does not truly know, and truly has any confidentiality obligation on him, so he can comment the merit of the disputes. there is why his info regarding the case has to be discounted.
you westerners listen: if you one day will be saved by Christ, you already have your final benefits, you should spare Chinese [in the sense you should not be so harsh on Chinese while still on this earth].
The best thing to do is: you need to forget the term China and Chinese, you should stay in your own little town, caring only about your local school's soccer or baseball matches, and spend your entire years gossiping about those stuff unrelated to Chinese or China.
You westerns came to China, gaining all the respects from our untrained Chinese follow men, you went back to your humble little town, commenting about 1.3 billion living persons, with no gratefulness: i almost would ask you to disgorge the under priced food you ate in my country. The food when served you had hypocritically praised (now you bite back the server).
you westerners who are lazy and jobless because of your own high standard of expectation: you came to China, surprised by the respect we have for you, quickly found you are actually more than who you believed when back to your own western countries, started to turn your back on the very people who respect you.
When the final result of the so to speak neutral tribunal of SCC in Stockholm delivers the final result by the end of summer or beginning of fall, you will tell me, yeah, those are delivered by tribunal , 2 American+ 1 Eu man, arbitrators who are influenced by Chinese!
the writer Ezra , may be from a self-awared competing people group against Chinese, should never consider coming back to China, as i personnally can disgnose that most Chinese , if knowing what kind of your unfriendliness you had toward Chinese, will never welcome you.
You are not welcome. Stay in your other master countries in the west, leaving my country alone.
also to all westerners who deem themselves superior for having lived in a cleaner place, i advice you never come to China, it would be better for you to stay in your boring western countries, than coming to China and after tasting the warmth of people and living in a friendly place like cities and coutrntries of China , you might sincerely cannot stand living in your own town, clean but boring, rule of law, but cold in heart.
We Chinese had rule of law, but clearly have abandoned it centuries ago!
we never had obligation to respect your western IP laws in the first place, just because our congress , sucumbbed to your pressure and promises and htreat (your capital invasional htreat in early 1990s), stupidly signed the Berne treaties.
Christ would not advocate rule of law like today! Pharisees are many, lovers are few!
debating me, if you are angry, wait, then email buduanchi@yahoo.com .
i am not a buddhist.
The Ezrarelevant page
The Ezrarelevant page is interesting. It deals with the scumbag who ripped off Danone.
The comments that follow, ending with a plug for Christianity, are more than a little smug and self-righteousness, but really, if the best riposte the Chinese can make is like that of Anti-ArrogantNotloyal DivorceProne violent selfishWesterners (above comment), God help China! (or Buddha if he's around)
C'mon, Beelz, that was a
C'mon, Beelz, that was a pretty entertaining riposte, wunnit?
"i almost would ask you to disgorge the under priced food you ate in my country"
- guy's got style.
Mr. Dierenjie
Mr. Dierenjie is a very famouse man in China history. I like his story very much.
Di Ren Jie was born in Tang
Di Ren Jie was born in Tang Dynasty Zhen Guan Period AD630 貞觀年間 (Emperor Li Shi Ming period).
china has achieved in 5
china has achieved in 5 years that other nations have taken 50
disneyland paris breaks
As of 686, during the reign
As of 686, during the reign of Emperor Gaozong's son Emperor Ruizong, Di Renjie was serving as the prefect of Ning Prefecture
Holiday in Paphos
chinese people are best in
chinese people are best in martial arts. .
Email Lists
I've purchased my book at
I've purchased my book at amazon, and you know, I don't regret at all and I'm not going to demand my money back. Moreover I've found the image conception for the film, It really looks amazing and I'm glad to share it with you:
wuxiasociety.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=45638&sid=24f59e609618ac00f42fe2b1cc467005
i've bought the book i don't
i've bought the book i don't regret at all really its a very nice book.thanks a lot for the sharing
taislim reviews
Refreshing
I am sick and tired of all these childish sci-fi movies as well. I like your idea and I think western audiences would love to see a movie like this with an actual good story to it.
I love the old style stories
Especially from the east. They actually have a plot to them that movies in the west just dont have, plus they are alot less tainted by sex and lust then American books and movies.
what are they doing to the
what are they doing to the naked woman?? is it sexual torture?
they are hitting to women.
they are hitting to women.
There there, currency rat,
There there, currency rat, it's just a picture.
Post new comment