In a sentenceAn airport brawl is a peculiar place to wish a detective film would stay
Tang Ren (Wang Baoqiang) and Qin Feng (Liu Haoran) are in Tokyo for a case, with Noda Hiroshi (Satoshi Tsumabuki) also caught up in the investigation. They need to solve a mystery, but the opening stretch gives them an airport brawl to contend with as well. Fighting spreads through a public space as detective work competes with the disorder around it. Keeping track of the case means keeping their attention on the investigation while the city supplies distractions on a considerable scale.
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Chen Sicheng gets real laughs from an outsized airport brawl, but the case is less rewarding. A muddled mystery and awkward melodrama keep this busy detective comedy short of a recommendation.
Detective Chinatown 3 is a mixed evening: lively physical comedy attached to a mystery that struggles to hold our attention. Chen Sicheng gives Wang Baoqiang’s Tang Ren and Liu Haoran’s Qin Feng plenty of commotion to work through, and occasionally the sheer excess is funny. But the case needs more care than the film gives it. At 136 minutes, there is too much time between those moments of pleasure.
The airport brawl is the main reason to persist. We laughed at its sprawling slapstick, because the size of the disturbance becomes part of the joke. Du Jie’s cinematography makes good comic use of the airport’s scale, giving the action room to spread. There is a welcome confidence to this sequence: it knows what is funny about filling a public space with this much trouble, and lets us enjoy it without requiring much thought about the investigation.
The chaos at Shibuya Crossing is another passage in which the film’s appetite for spectacle pays off. Editor Tang Hongjia helps these set pieces move with the punch missing from the detective story, though the briskness is less useful when there is information to absorb. The trouble is that a lively sequence can only distract us from a confused plot for so long. Once we start trying to follow the case again, the enjoyment becomes harder work.
The writing is credited to Zhang Chun, Yan Yining and Chen Sicheng, and it is where the film most needs a firmer hand. The case demands close attention without making that attention rewarding. Comic mysteries can afford to be a little untidy; they still need the business of discovery to be interesting. Here the detective work too often feels like something to get through before another fight, even with Wang Baoqiang and Liu Haoran to carry us along.
Nathan Wang and Hu Xiao’ou’s score cannot smooth out the film’s awkward move from broad absurdity to melodrama. The change asks for an emotional investment the detective story has done too little to earn. There is no reason a comedy should remain cheerful throughout, and a more serious passage might have given these characters some weight. Here it arrives as another demand on our attention, when the plot has already used up rather too much of it.
We can see the appeal of a detective comedy that treats a city as a playground, and the airport sequence shows the care that has gone into the physical staging. There are stretches when its willingness to be ridiculous is enough, particularly if solving the case is not the main attraction. The trouble is the amount of film separating those stretches. We would not give it 136 minutes for the fights alone.
The review’s standfirst points to expanded world-building and heightened zaniness. The accessible text does not reveal the critic’s overall verdict or further details.
Read the full review →Bradshaw finds the film’s eccentric hyperactivity increasingly enjoyable, though its melodramatic climax jars with the preceding absurdity. He praises the spectacle, especially a colossal slapstick fight at Tokyo airport and the chaos at Shibuya crossing.
Read the full review →Kuipers finds the sequel uneven: its energetic comedy and visual flair are fun, but its central mystery is convoluted and undercooked. He singles out the airport brawl and the Shibuya Crossing sequence as standout set pieces.
Read the full review →McCarthy finds the film a disappointment after the first two entries, with its overcomplicated mystery making it hard to follow. He praises the lively, punchy moment-to-moment direction, but says it cannot hold the story together.
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The Nice Guys · not reviewed yetA shambolic detective partnership with sharper jokes and more affection for its characters.
Kung Fu Hustle · not reviewed yetFor more carefully organised chaos, and slapstick that knows exactly where to land.
A Shot in the Dark · not reviewed yetA comic investigation led by a detective whose confidence comfortably exceeds his competence.
Going by the Book · not reviewed yetA police exercise goes wrong because one participant insists on doing it properly.
The Murderer Lives at Number 21 · not reviewed yetAn undercover investigation gives a boarding house full of suspects room to be funny.
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