According to its publisher Doubleday, Dan Brown’s global bestseller has sold over 60 million copies in 45 languages and counting. As such, it was inevitable that the book would be brought to the big screen, and almost as predictable it would make hundreds of millions at the box office. What no one could have foreseen was that The Da Vinci Code would be such a turkey of a film. In case you’re one of the few souls who hasn’t read the book, the plot can be summarized as follows: French cryptologist (Audrey Tautou) teams up with an American religious-symbol expert (Tom Hanks) to find the killer of the Louvre curator, and unveils a two-thousand-year-old secret that threatens the foundations of modern Christianity. Of course, as one would expect with a Hollywood production, the film is full of gorgeous locations (including the Louvre), and a star-packed cast (with a typically distinguished Ian McKellan as Sir Leigh Teabing). But with too many characters, locations and plot twists, what flowed with relative ease on the printed page, is laborious on celluloid. However, both media do share one thing in common: theological and historical nonsense.
Columbia Pictures

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
July 2006 issue



(c) that's PRD
PRD Chief editor: Christopher Cottrell
July 2006 issue