Detective Chinatown (2015) User Reviews

Funny, Inspired, entertaining

[timbermisc · 8/10 · 16 January 2016]

I don't speak Mandarin, but I thought it was a quality movie. 100 gags; the audience was laughing lightly through most of the movie. This movie was produced in China and has similarities to a Jackie Chan movie, except that it is slightly better. It has a silly, comedic timing mixed with some serious, violent scenes.

The audience was filled. I only speak English, but it had subtitles. They spoke rather fast, so I could not keep up with their words, but the scenes told the story. Basically, two detectives are on a hunt for gold and a murderer.

There is everything in this movie: a beauty queen, a tiny amount of sexiness, mobster actors, a straight man comedic partnership, racing scenes, dancing, excellent marital arts fights and beautiful scenes.

Funny film.

[subxerogravity · 6/10 · 22 January 2016]

I thought the movie was very, very funny.

It had some very good jokes in it. You get nervous seeing comedies in a different language than your own and wonder if you'll get the jokes, but the jokes were a simplistic base of comedy that everyone can laugh at

Plus several of the jokes were visual slap stick that was just universal. In fact the movie all together was visually simulating, which showed Thailand's Chinatown to be a very colorful place.

The two main actors in this were an exceptional team as well. The movie is about a young man who fails out of the police academy despite his exceptional skills in observation (he plays the straight man). TY get over his depression he visits an uncle who lives in Thailand (he plays the screw ball) Together they have to solve a murder while looking for a gangster's gold.

It was a really fun, entertaining film to watch.

funny, kept my attention all the way, excellent for a second-time director.

[monchocolat · 7/10 · 16 June 2016]

I must say Chinatown Detective is never the best detective film, but it's a good one. Funny, plot reasonably complicated, a twist in the end. Two young actors' performance is convincing enough, especially the girl. Her last scene really struck me and many other Chinese audiences. I doubt if those who didn't see any good out of it watched it throughout at all. It doesn't have the fanciest or epoch- breaking technical innovation, but neither do most filmmakers around the world. For instance, the gunfight in the hospital is a good scene. The escape from the police station might be a tribute to Jackie Chan's earlier films.

There are many funny moments where I got good laughs. But not understanding the Chinese language will cause a problem to that. A few of the actors are renowned for their comedian work in their local dialect. The robber wearing glasses are famous for his comedies in his Northeastern dialect which is a big contrast to the location of the film. If a viewer doesn't understand Chinese or Thai, they might not know that the Thai police chief would give instructions in Thai but threaten to fire the two Chinese officers in Chinese.

The humour isn't that Chinese people are making fun of Chinese people. It's that the safest joke you can ever make is about yourself. After all, character arrangements are only film characters. They're not always meant to be realistic, especially in the comedic bits. It's strange if anyone imagine all Chinese people will be so ridiculous as certain characters.

There's also deep philosophy hidden in the film which I wonder how many Hollywood popular films have. If you don't watch Chinatown Detective carefully, you probably have entirely forgotten about the caption at the beginning of the film. In fact, the ending of the film or two young characters in the film is the evidence to the caption at the beginning. It is also in the discussion between the two youngsters.

Therefore, whoever says this film is a complete failure or anyone who watches this is an idiot will be an idiot in my eyes, honestly. Reviewers like BasicLogic might lack basic logic in certain ways. If I don't like some film, I won't say this film is made of utter stupidity, because it's non-sense. Only seeing the problems in Chinese film industry instead of problems in their own film industry (I guarantee there must be some as there's no such thing as a perfect industry) is just biased and arrogant.

Whoever says this film isn't funny at all, it's because people have different perception on humour. I never found Annie Hall funny. I thought The Hangover franchise or Due Date weren't so funny for my taste. But I enjoyed The Philadelphia Story and Divorzio all'Italiana. I don't think it's the best idea to judge negatively upon a comedy which is not your taste. (Not to mention you don't understand the Chinese language, which means you won't get any linguistic humour.) On the other hand, an art-house film or documentary lover shouldn't look down upon a good comedy simply because it was made to be entertaining. Ultimately, most films are made for entertainment. If you want to be high-brow, that's your own business. But don't laugh at others who want to have a good laugh.

I would personally recommend this film. If there are people who hate it, that's not their fault. But that's not the film's fault either.

Enjoyable movie

[robinsin-05554 · 7/10 · 15 March 2017]

I have seen lot of Chinese movies, mostly garbage in terms of story line and quality of production. However this movie was quite well made movie. I'm impressed. Some people may don't like this movie because it is not right taste, but I think this movie was enjoyable and truly entertained. I recommend for who like comedy, action, thriller movie. I do not recommend if you like dark and serious movie.

Decent mystery

[GinaDRX · 6/10 · 20 October 2021]

As a detective movie, the mystery is decent, but squashed into the last quarter of the film. The first half of the movie is "silly fun". It is funny, but mostly physical comedy and "wu li tou". After a lot of chaos, finally they start to analyze and detect. In the last 1/4, the film also manages to squeeze in a twist and surprise.

Without giving out spoilers, one of scenes has a facial expression reminding me of Edward Norton's brilliant portrait of Roy in Primal Fear.

Overall enjoyable but nothing unforgettable.

One of the better mainland movies I've seen

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 2 February 2018]

I'm not a huge fan of the films put out by mainland China, finding them flawed in various ways: either bogged down in appalling CGI, spoilt by unwanted propaganda, or packed with the lamest comedy imaginable. I thought the same would be true of DETECTIVE CHINATOWN, but it turns out to be a lot more enjoyable than I had hoped. The story follows a young, bland cop, played by a slightly wooden Liu Haoran, who is reejcted by the police and who heads off with his bizarre uncle to solve a murder case in Thailand. Said uncle is played by Wang Baoqiang, who I previously saw in the likes of BLIND SHAFT and KUNG FU KILLER, and he turns out to be perfectly cast. He's eccentric, over the top, very energetic, and most of all, funny. His character is pretty outrageous but he makes the film enjoyable and his long-running feud with a rival leads to the movie's greatest moments. Some of it is slow and sappy, but the lowbrow slapstick scenes are fun and there's some Jackie Chan-style action and a scene or two borrowed from THE RAID 2 which are very entertaining.

Scarcely interesting

[daisukereds · 6/10 · 27 June 2021]

In summary, a smart kid visits his uncle in Thailand after failing to become a Detective in China (for reasons). Soon after arriving, the uncle is incriminated.. and the both work towards solving the case. The uncle knows the town (and is quite agile) and the kid is more than smart. Frenzy ensues.

It reminded me of old Chinese movies, similar to Jackie Chan's older work.. but there is more thought put into the script than the action.

** A note : Even if it is a Chinese production, this is a movie filmed completely in Thailand! Now, most of the cast speaks in Mandarin(?), several lines are delivered in Thai(?). So! Even though it seemed to be a properly translated movie (subtitles), I still felt some minor details were a bit confusing.. Didn't really affect my understanding of the main plot.

Anyway.. as for the movie itself : This is a chaotic and comedic mystery with more energy and colorful real-life-locations filled with extras than I was expecting. It has a darker tone underneath (as you would expect from a murder mystery), but it's hard to take it seriously. It is primarily gags, but doesn't mean that people that like to play along with the resolution of a case won't enjoy it. In fact, there is a lot of cleverness hidden amongst the jokes and unrealistic chasing all over "Chinatown". If anything, I enjoyed unraveling it as it went along. Sadly, it's more interesting than it is fun, but scarcely so. The action isn't particularly memorable, but the varied and a well defined cast makes up for it.

As of now, I can't see how the third movie in the series made so much money.. as this seems to be a one-and-done kind of thing. But we'll get there.

Entertaining enough to watch, but at 2 hours and 15 minutes it is a bit long.

A Comedy of Great Quality

[liyiren · 9/10 · 1 February 2016]

This is not just a funny comedy, but also a well-made film with great quality. The actions,funny scenes,dialogues were orchestrated in such a great way that it drew every second of my attention.

Wang Baoqiang did a great job in playing a character that is both silly and witty, wild and cowardly, someone you want to slap in the face but also give a dollar out of pity.

I usually justify things in a quantitative way. And here is the math:

The average driving speed of the vehicles in the movie is about 20% of the avg. driving speed in 007 Spectre; but the car chase scenes are five times more intense with the cars looking way faster that those in 007 Spectre.

My opinion might be biased since I was able to "fully" understand the movie with my full Chinese proficiency, and I also thought Spectre was the worst 007 movie which totally wasted two hours of my life.

Anyway, I thought this movie was a job well done.

Bangkok Sherlock.

[BA_Harrison · 6/10 · 14 January 2021]

After failing his police academy entrance exam, Qin Feng (Haoran Liu) visits his uncle (or cousin) Tang Ren (Baoqiang Wan) in Bangkok. When Tang Ren finds himself the chief suspect in a murder case, Qin Feng uses his powers of observation and deductive skills to solve the crime and clear his uncle's (or cousin's) name.

I've long been a fan of Far Eastern cinema, but have often struggled with Asian comedies. When I clapped eyes on Baoqiang Wang in Detective Chinatown, with his inane grin and stupid hair, I thought 'here we go again', positive that I was in for 2 hours of excruciatingly unfunny nonsense, and the first half an hour did little to change my mind, especially with Wang's silly voice adding to the irritation.

But then something unexpected happened: I laughed. And then soon after, I laughed again. Then, to my surprise, I found myself caught up in the murder mystery plot, and admiring Sicheng Chen's assured direction (especially the visual manner in which Qin Feng mentally processes clues, which reminded me of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes). Wang's daft character grew less and less irksome, to the point that I actually looked forward to his next wacky exploit. Detective Chinatown had finally won me over.

A colourful mix of comedy, adventure, and intrigue, the film ultimately delivers thrills, spills and, yes, even laughs, and although it is half an hour too long at 136 minutes, the reasonably fast pace ensures that it is an entertaining ride, right up to the final twist and the fun song and dance number during the end credits.

6/10 - it takes a while to warm to, but is worth the effort.

Not my favorite

[mbl-82007 · 4/10 · 8 December 2018]

I didn't particularly like this movie. Now, to be fair, this type of film isn't exactly my favorite. There were even some redeeming qualities to it.

For example, I appreciated the script. The dialogue was quick-witted, quirky, and fun to follow along with. I also really enjoyed the general plot, as it was familiar. I appreciated this movie as a nostalgic reminder of the crime movies I used to watch with my grandmother as a child. As with similar movies, I grew to adore the lovable protagonists and even root for their success.

On the other hand, several aspects of the movie were tedious and a little disappointing. While I enjoyed some of the quick and smart dialogue, some of the English subtitles simply flashed on the screen too quickly for me to fully absorb. This left me with a somewhat fuzzy understanding of some of the more nitpicky aspects of the movie. Also, the movie seemed to drag on a little longer than necessary. I found myself hoping the movie would come to an end sooner rather than later.

Overall, I did enjoy the movie, just not enough to watch it again!

Mystery, Comedy and Parodies

[poisonfish_law · 10/10 · 2 September 2017]

Mixing Crime, Comedy is never easy. You could succeed with awards or flop into winning in Rotten Tomatoes.

I am fortunate as I speak English, Chinese and Thai so it was easy to follow the plot and this is truly a winner.

Everyone having a bad day at work should watch this and be entertained.. which is after all what comedy means. Enjoy.

As for the comedy, the slapstick escapades sequence is just great tribute to Charlie Chaplin. If any reviewers take offense to the farce, they must have not watch Mr Chaplin epic slapstick routines.

I really enjoy the sequences of another lead getting his nose busted in every scene he appear... a tribute and parody to another Hollywood detective that has his nose plastered from start to finish...

The crime is a lock room mystery with a twist. And as one of the main role idolize Sherlock Holmes, the tribute to the cinematography in the Hollywood version with Downey is not lost and thoroughly enjoyable.

And then there are the actions... the actions are surprising. I agreed. Watch the car chase scene and the fight scenes... no spoilers here..

And finally the black comedy portion. The Hospital shoot out and the reference to the sound track at that moment is truly a genius. R&D on the meaning of the song and you will enjoy the shootout scene!! I see a lot of tribute to Thai black comedy style which I enjoy. And I hope this will encourage viewer to look into more Thai black comedies if you enjoy this movie. A lot of gems there.

To top it off...the film squeeze in a hidden moral message. See the other reviews for a clue.

As lost in translation goes, I am afraid its true... easily some of the conversation true meaning might be lost if you watch the subtitles.

Fortunately "using a deity as a hostage" meaning is not lost in subtitles.

If you are a film buff, you will be truly occupied spotting the parodies and tribute and amaze at how all these can be spliced in effortlessly.

And when do big budget movie see an ending sequence where you know the entire cast have a roaring good time? The ending itself put you in a humming mode and remind you to laugh and be entertain.

If you watch this film to spot continuity errors, and be critical on every scene and plot.. you should not be watching this film.

Do watch if you think you want to be entertained.

Predictable plot but very entertaining

[sisubalan · 6/10 · 13 August 2022]

Its definitely a fun movie, tons of comedic moments and glad that it didnt stuck in a one tone formula like other chinese movies. Leaning towards adventurous, mystery and actions, which reminds me of sherlock holmes and detective conan. Very enthusiastic casts and great use of landscapes and other cultures. The storyline was kinda basic and very predictable moments. Had a lgbt representation but not sure on how it was executed since china government arent lgbtq+ friendly. So yes, recommended.

This was a swing and a miss...

[paul_haakonsen · 4/10 · 4 November 2019]

Naturally I sat down to watch "Detective Chinatown" (aka "Tang ren jie tan an") when I was given the chance to do so here in 2019. I wasn't even familiar with these movies prior to stumbling upon them randomly. And given my fascination with Asian cinema, of course I had to watch it.

I wanted to like this movie, I really did. But it just never really caught on with me, and I must say that it was a drag to sit through this ordeal of a movie. Actually, I didn't even finish it, as I fell asleep twice throughout the course of it and simply just gave up with 40 minutes left of the movie. At that point I was well beyond my threshold of what I will endure in a movie. And "Detective Chinatown" was not delivering anything particularly entertaining for me.

The storyline here was just unappealing, and it wasn't something that I found amusing. Sure, there were a few smirks and smiles here and there, but that was about it what director and writer Sicheng Chen managed to acquire from me as I watched this movie.

I didn't really care much about neither storyline nor characters in the movie. There was just something fundamental missing from everything here to make it an interesting movie. For me, it seemed like writer and director Sicheng Chen was just running everything on auto-pilot.

I am rating it four out of ten stars, solely because of the production value and the fact that they had some fair enough actors and actresses in the movie. However, this is not a movie that I will be returning to finish, it just simply wasn't within my liking. And now I have heavy doubts about sitting down to watch the sequels.

Another China average lousy movie

[mailtaskservice · 6/10 · 19 April 2021]

I just dont know why some places nominated this lousy movie. Is it influenced by bribery which is well known in China. This movie tried to be comedy but only average, nothing big deal. The story is average and the stunts are lousy. The only big in this movie is they employed more medium stars and many low grades extras actors. But however overall is still an average quality movie among China movies. Not recommended to watch because there are too much better movies and dramas than wasting precious time even if you have too much time.

well

[d-88504 · 6/10 · 9 May 2020]

Logic, the combination of suspense and comedy have no sense of harmony, the laugh point is reasonable and interesting, in line with the plot direction, even some seemingly a little deliberately laugh point actually turned out to be foible. The structure and integrity of the story, as well as the sense of rhythm, are well controlled. As the story crescendo, one link after another, a lot of doubts seem to be complicated and confusing, but layer upon layer, people can not understand.

Surprise work

[z-59713 · 7/10 · 1 May 2020]

It's enough that all the actors of a movie are online, the plot is reasonable and coherent, and the director's shooting techniques are becoming more and more mature, bringing laughter and stories to the audience.

Little fresh meat can't keep up with Wang Baoqiang's rhythm

[yoggwork · 6/10 · 19 February 2019]

Little fresh meat can't keep up with Wang Baoqiang's rhythm. It's simply a feeling of narration. Qualified playful movies, the finishing touch is the last girl's amazing laugh.

It was a good movie.

[fuhjar · 9/10 · 2 October 2020]

It's a 2015 film but I watched it in 2020 btw. The film is great. I love everything in there, the songs, the quality, the story plot are totally well-made. I think I laugh in most of the scene, it's really entertaining to watch.

What I don't like about this movie is I think the story was to long and too many scene in one film (I'll watch Detective Chinatown 2 soon) and it makes the film a little bit boring to be watched. There's also some scene that is unnecessary.

But overall its fine. You won't be disappointed in watching this film. It's a happy ending I guess? Idk.

I recommend watch this film when you have 2 hour free time.

...sooooo bad...this gets 6.6 on IMDb?

[bcheng93 · 2/10 · 16 February 2016]

...i think this movie is OK for teenagers and people with low i.q. for once i agree with reviewer "basiclogic". this reviewer just kills all Chinese movies just-about. but....yah...this movie was that bad, i tried to stick it out but had to turn it off after 20 minutes. i was hoping it would be a really good comedy..but in the first 20 minutes i didn't get 1 laugh out of it. the movie is also stereotyping Chinese people but its a Chinese movie...thats low. this movie tries to be a gag a minute but after 20 minutes it wasn't working for me. its good for people who are racist against the Chinese. for all the good movies coming out of China you're going to get some bad ones too. its a shame really..Chinese making fun of Chinese..would be OK if it was funny, but it's not. watch at own risk...be warned.

Different and a must see.

[breeze47 · 8/10 · 28 February 2021]

I heard that the third film in the series was massive in china at launch so i fancied getting a taste of what another country loved.

After seeing the second i can say that the first film spends a lot of time building the character relationships, but by the end they feel like old friends. It's a serious murder mystery that happens to be being investigated by a genius and a clown, i loved it. It has dark moments, shocks, silly chases, laugh outloud moments and a gunfight in a hospital corridor that's a whole new level of "what the hell am i watching?!" But i loved it.

See this, then you'll love the second even more.

Nice comedy suspense detective thriller..!!

[kamalbeeee · 8/10 · 4 May 2021]

A jobless young boy went to america for met his Uncle for some job..but his uncle got into a problem in murder and he try to save his uncle.. Nice story screenplay and comedy and finally good twist in climax.. Must watch movie..!!