09-22-2019, 04:47 PM
Detective Chinatown (2015)
Another buddy film with Wang Baoqiang cast as the bumbling fool. Set in Thailand too. Unfortunately this one sucks. It was a holiday release, and the sequel, released last year for Chinese New Years was well received, so I figured I'd go back for the original. Very disappointing on many accounts. The fights are bad, a waste of Wang's skills, and almost all of them end up in groin grabs and strikes, for comedic effect. Wang's buddy is a failed police candidate raised on detective stories and does a Sherlockian-style of memory effects when he discovers clues (he's so eidetic that he can recognize Thai even though he can't read it). Wang gets framed for murder, and there's too many absurd chase scenes through Bangkok where dozens of cops are running behind Wang and his buddy. There's a lot of hackneyed comedy tropes, like an extended everyone-hide-in-the-hottie's-boudoir scene, which is almost funny. There's a running joke on a foppish cop who keeps getting his nose broken that drew a smirk at one of the final breaks but not quite a laugh. There are multiple lines where they say something akin to 'that's like something out of a bad movie', a painfully self-aware observation. Also ironic is that 'buddy' is subtitled 'bubby' in several spots.
I almost didn't make it through to the ending, and sadly, the reveal wasn't bad. The mcguffins were actually pretty good - the murder plot was complex and works, although by that point, it didn't redeem the film.
Here's the trailer. Might as well watch it because I'm not recommending this film at all, even to cf.
Another buddy film with Wang Baoqiang cast as the bumbling fool. Set in Thailand too. Unfortunately this one sucks. It was a holiday release, and the sequel, released last year for Chinese New Years was well received, so I figured I'd go back for the original. Very disappointing on many accounts. The fights are bad, a waste of Wang's skills, and almost all of them end up in groin grabs and strikes, for comedic effect. Wang's buddy is a failed police candidate raised on detective stories and does a Sherlockian-style of memory effects when he discovers clues (he's so eidetic that he can recognize Thai even though he can't read it). Wang gets framed for murder, and there's too many absurd chase scenes through Bangkok where dozens of cops are running behind Wang and his buddy. There's a lot of hackneyed comedy tropes, like an extended everyone-hide-in-the-hottie's-boudoir scene, which is almost funny. There's a running joke on a foppish cop who keeps getting his nose broken that drew a smirk at one of the final breaks but not quite a laugh. There are multiple lines where they say something akin to 'that's like something out of a bad movie', a painfully self-aware observation. Also ironic is that 'buddy' is subtitled 'bubby' in several spots.
I almost didn't make it through to the ending, and sadly, the reveal wasn't bad. The mcguffins were actually pretty good - the murder plot was complex and works, although by that point, it didn't redeem the film.
Here's the trailer. Might as well watch it because I'm not recommending this film at all, even to cf.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse