Detective Chinatown 2
唐人街探案2
China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 120 mins.
Director: Chen Sicheng 陈思诚.
Rating: 5/10.
Disappointing sequel relies purely on buffoonery, without the original’s clever plotting.
STORY
New York, 6 Jul. Police academy student Qin Feng (Liu Haoran) arrives from Beijing for the wedding of his distant cousin, Bangkok private detective Tang Ren (Wang Baoqiang), and finds the latter has tricked him into helping him win a detective contest. Chinatown godfather Wu Zhiyuan, aka Uncle Seven (Zeng Jiang), has assembled the world’s best private detectives to solve the recent murder of his grandson Wu Zhihao, aka Jason, who was found on 1 Jul in Zaowang Temple with his heart removed. Having learned he has only a week to live, Wu Zhiyuan promises US$5 million to the detective who can solve the case before he dies. Tang Ren entreats Qin Feng to help him win the money, which he needs to attract back the love of his life, Xiang (Tong Liya), who’s just married a wealthy, handsome man (Chen Sicheng). NYPD criminal profiler Chen Ying (Liu Chengyu) briefs the assembled detectives on the case. On the second day, she accompanies them to Zaowang Temple, where she adds that the killer is left-handed, male, Chinese, aged 25-40, single, and well educated. Japanese-Chinese detective Noda Hiroshi (Tsumabuki Satoshi) notes the similarities with the recent Hudson River Murder, in which a young white woman’s body was found with the same “Y” incision, an organ removed, and traces of sevoflurane inhaled by the victim. Comparison of CCTV footage of the two areas reveals a suspect, illegal immigrant Song Yi (Xiao Yang), so everyone sets out to find him. In Chinatown, Qin Feng traces him to a dingy address where he teaches Chinese, but Song Yi is not left-handed. Suddenly, Wu Zhiyuan’s slimy godson Lu Guofu (Wang Xun) arrives with his henchmen and abducts Song Yi in order to kill him. Qin Feng and Tang Ren eventually manage to rescue him and discover he’s actually a private detective. On the third day, Qin Feng deduces where the Hudson River victim was actually killed and, via Tang Ren’s old martial-arts master, Mo Youqian (Yuan Hua), the pair discover the meaning of the symbol found at the crime scenes. That night, in a park, Qin Feng, Tang Ren and Song Yi see the killer removing an organ from another victim and give chase. Qin Feng pursues the killer to Grand Central station but the latter escapes. Song Yi admits to Qin Feng and Tang Ren that he’s been manipulated by Q, the number one detective on crime-solving app Crimaster, who has been taking an interest in the case. On the fourth day, the trio break into the office of hospital owner James Springfield (Michael Pitt), the forensic pathologist on the cases, in order to find out details of the latest victim. While there they are abducted by Lu Guofu’s men and held in a cell. Tang Ren and Qin Feng work out that the three deaths so far are connected with the Five Elements and that the killer, who wants to become immortal, is using the city as a giant altar.
REVIEW
Finally arriving over a year later than originally announced, Detective Chinatown 2 唐人街探案2 is hardly worth the wait. Equally manic but this time not redeemed by a plot of any cleverness or complexity, the reunion of goofy comic Wang Baoqiang 王宝强, 33, and young actor Liu Haoran 刘昊然, 20, as a pair of odd-couple sleuths – this time in a filmy version of New York instead of Bangkok – seems way longer than the original even though it’s actually 15 minutes shorter. Where Detective Chinatown 唐人街探案 (2015) showed a real love for the crime-mystery genre, and all the wacko comedy of Mainlanders behaving badly abroad was more the topping than the cake, DC2 is the reverse, with the main plot – some mysteriously linked serial murders – just a hook on which to hang one after another scene of the turbo-charged Wang, baby-faced Liu, and returning comedian Xiao Yang 肖央 (in a different role this time) doing very silly things in the streets of Manhattan. None of this has fazed Mainland audiences, who have so far voted it the CNY box-office champion, with some RMB2.9 billion in its first two weeks – already over three times the original’s very hunky RMB824 million. [Final tally after eight weeks was RMB3.40 billion, putting it in second place to Operation Red Sea 红海行动, which grossed RMB3.65 billion.]
So profligate is the script by returning director Chen Sicheng 陈思诚 (Beijing Love Story 北京爱情故事, 2014) and four other writers (including the original’s Cheng Jiake 程佳客) that it immediately sets up a kind of Cluedo riff – the world’s top private detectives assemble to solve the murder of a Chinese crimelord’s son – and then abandons it to concentrate on the Wang & Liu duo. Before being tossed on the scrapheap, Japan’s Tsumabuki Satoshi 妻夫木聪 (Waterboys ウォーターボーイズ, 2001; Villain 恶人, 2010) has a few scenes as a smart Japanese-Chinese detective, veteran Bai Ling 百灵 pops up for a nano-second as an eccentric Indonesian sleuth and tyro actress Shang Yuxian 尚语贤 (aka Shang Chengcen 尚成涔) looks pert as a dollybird hacker before being abandoned and then briefly resurrected as a plot device. Apart from US bodybuilder Brett Azar as a testosterone-filled detective, the rest of the sleuths hardly register.
Instead, the script wheels Wang and Liu’s characters – soon joined by Xiao’s – from one situational set-up to another: running half-naked in Manhattan, cornered in a gay bikers’ bar, dressed in drag as hospital nurses, and so on, with Wang reprising his send-up of the accent of Hong Kong actor Zeng Zhiwei 曾志伟 [Eric Tsang] – funny for about five minutes – and Liu throwing him OMG looks as he transgresses yet another social norm. Much of this belly-laugh stuff was par for the course in the original but was much more skilfully calibrated so that it always stayed just the right side of grating; in DC2, however, not only does it become grating but also it soon becomes evident that, on the detection side, there’s no real reason for Wang’s character to be in the script. This glaring weakness is finally rectified by the writers an hour in, when he stops arsing around and basically solves the central mystery within five minutes; but it’s simply a transition device to get to the finale, set in an abandoned sugar factory.
Most of the so-called deduction is done by Liu’s character, whom we already know from the first film has a photographic memory and a deep knowledge of crime novels. This time, however, these skills are hardly used; and as in several Mainland whodunits (such as Guilty of Mind 心理罪, 2017) there’s very little genuine “deduction”, more a series of elaborate VFX sequences to illustrate the sleuth’s a priori guesswork. Liu’s character is, at least, allowed to solve a subsidiary mystery that makes up the film’s not-so-big twist, but by then it’s all too much, too late.
Chemistry between the two lead actors is on a par with that in the first film’s, i.e. a convenient construct rather than a natural odd-couple pairing, though Liu is fractionally less bland this time round. The inclusion among the leads of Xiao (who played a super-sleazy rival detective in the first film) perks things up considerably, filling the yawning performance gap between Wang and Liu. The main problem is that this time Wang has no other similarly extrovert performances to bounce off of: the closest is a typically over-ripe one by comedian Wang Xun 王迅 (Once Upon a time in the Northeast 东北往事 破马张飞, 2016; Kill Me Please 这就是命, 2017) as the crimelord’s evil godson, but the two actors are rarely together for very long. Other performances are bits: veterans Zeng Jiang 曾江 [Kenneth Tsang] as the dying crimelord and Yuan Hua 元华 as a forgetful old master who thinks Liu’s character is a girl.
Production values, by basically the same team of d.p., composer, art director and stylist, are OK but without any special “take” on New York beyond the usual cliches. Notably, only a tiny part of the film is actually set in the city’s Chinatown area. The third part of Chen’s planned trilogy, to take place in Tokyo, is set up in the final shot.
CREDITS
Presented by Wanda Media (CN), Khorgos Shine Asia Pictures & Culture Media (CN).
Script: Chen Sicheng, Yan Yining, Zhou Zhenni, Zhang Chun, Cheng Jiake, Gao Liming. Photography: Du Jie. Editing: Tang Hongjia. Music: Wang Zongxian [Nathan Wang], Hu Xiao’ou. Art direction: Li Miao. Styling: Zhang Shijie [Stanley Cheung], Gary Jones, Samantha Hawkins. Sound: Dong Xu, Zhang Jia. Action: Wu Gang. Visual effects: Qiao Le, Ye Zi.
Cast: Wang Baoqiang (Tang Ren), Liu Haoran (Qin Feng), Xiao Yang (Song Yi), Liu Chengyu [Natasha Liu Bordizzo] (Chen Ying/Laura, NYPD criminal profiler), Shang Yuxian (Kiko, computer-hacker detective), Wang Xun (Lu Guofu), Zeng Jiang [Kenneth Tsang] (Wu Zhiyuan), Wang Chengsi, Yang Jinci (Lu Guofu’s sidekicks), Yuan Hua (Mo Youqian, Tang Ren’s master), Tsumabuki Satoshi (Noda Hiroshi, Japanese-Chinese detective), Tong Liya (Xiang), Michael Pitt (James Springfield, forensic pathologist), Fan Tiantian (Chinatown receptionist), Brett Azar (Will Bill Bully, US detective), Bai Ling (Aaimali Kunana, Indonesian psychic detective), Savvy Crawford (Sherlock, English girl detective), Chen Sicheng (Xiang’s husband in photo).
Release: China, 16 Feb 2018.