Film Name: 唐探1900 / Detective Chinatown 1900
By now, this year’s Spring Festival ranking is basically set, except for “Ne Zha 2”, which is ready to take the lead in China’s movie market, and “Detective Chinatown 1900”, which is the second most popular film at the box office and by word-of-mouth.
I was expecting this movie to be bad, but after watching it, I realized that it’s quite well done, or at least better than I expected it to be.
Of course, this “Detective Chinatown 1900” has all the flaws and faults that we can think of, such as the nationalistic narrative with the “melodrama”, the weak reasoning and the need to rely on brainstorming, etc., but as a holiday comedy with a lot of elements, it is definitely above the line and has many highlights. But as a holiday comedy with many elements, it’s definitely above the line, with many highlights.
I really admire Chen Sicheng, always looking for new changes, the efficiency of the film is also high …… You can say that he is opportunistic and clever, but can not be denied, in the filming of cost-effective, especially in the ability to attract money, he is the king of the proper.
[Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below].
To talk about “Detective Chinatown 1900”, we have to start with the “Detective Chinatown” series.
In addition to the first part of the Tang Detective can be considered to open the situation, the latter two Tang Detective has been with the elements of the detective entertainment film, although the box office made a lot of money, but the evaluation has plummeted, especially Tang Detective 3, there is a serious inversion of the situation of the word of mouth and the box office – so Chen Sicheng this time, chose to reboot the soft, change the time and space, to the United States in 1900, to the United States in the 1900s, the time and space. , came to the United States in 1900 San Francisco.
The series chose to solve crimes in the exotic Chinatown, not only to take care of the Chinese audience’s sense of intimacy, but also to increase the degree of freedom of filming at the same time to show the exotic flavor, which can be said to be multi-purpose.
Detective Chinatown 1900″ relies on the transformation of the stage this time, but also has an additional killer: relying on the historical facts of the objective existence of overseas Chinese humiliation, as well as the spontaneous patriotic fervor of the aspiring people, bursting out of a strong national sentiment.
In addition to the “melodrama”, the movie also makes a large-scale reconstruction and rewriting of the two main characters.
Liu Haoran plays Qin Fu, a young man (black) from a Chinese medicine family who stays in the U.S. He is smart and witty, but not a professional detective, and also has the shortcomings of being greedy for money and lust; and Wang Baoqiang plays Ghost, the son of a Chinese laborer and an Indian hunter, who is naïve and reckless, but has the skills of Sergeant Brewster and an amazing sense of insight.
It’s not hard to see that “Detective Chinatown 1900” is the result of crushing Qin Feng and Tang Ren from the Tang Detective series to create Qin Fu and Ghost, both of whom have some characteristics and shadows of the other’s “past lives”.
Ghost is no longer a purely hilarious clown like Tang Ren, he will use his own experience and observation to help examine the corpse and find clues, Qin Fu is no longer a serious deductive genius like Qin Feng, he will also make a lot of jokes because of his own timidity, greed and greed, while using the “look and smell” to detect the case.
I have to say, this “the beauty of the ugly and the strengths and weaknesses of the half” way to deal with, than the simple persona of the swap much more clever, the audience can harvest both familiar and fresh experience, many works containing “parallel universe” settings good-looking, in fact, is also because of this! The reasoning behind this is that many works containing “parallel universe” settings are good because of this reasoning.
However, when it comes to the crime scene, “Detective Chinatown 1900” is still not good enough, the narrative pacing is problematic, and the reasoning is also not very convincing.
The movie takes the “Jack the Ripper” murder case in San Francisco as its main theme, but not long after the beginning, it inserts a lot of “ethnic narrative” related to the theft of guns by Paik Chun-bong and Zheng Shi-liang, Paik Hsuan-ling’s fight against the white populists and the Irish gangsters, and Fei Yang-gu’s pursuit of a rebel, and so on. These subplots are related to the investigation, but the relationship is not great, and only when the stage is over will it go back to the main line, the rhythm is obviously imbalanced.
In the reasoning level, the movie always hides the key information, wait until the truth is revealed to tell you, and need a lot of flashbacks and the audience’s imagination to make up for the full, so set and far-fetched detective story, certainly can not be considered clever.
Fortunately, the core selling point of “Detective Chinatown 1900” is not the reasoning and solving of the case, but rather the moderate laughs and strong nationalistic feelings.
Comedy is understandable, after all, it is the base color of the film, and compared to the past Tang detective movies, the “stink” of “Detective Chinatown 1900” is already very light, more like Ghost transformed into a super-soldier, as well as Jinling Fu magic stage of the big change, simple and pure, harmless.
As for the national sentiment, it is not something that can make people happy, because the Chinese people in the movie suffered from unfair treatment and bullying, all of them are the real existence of history.
The Pacific Railroad, which was called “Every sleeper has a Chinese worker’s soul buried under it”, the infamous “The Chinese Exclusion Act”, the genocide of Rock Springs, the invasion of China by the Eight-Power Allied Forces, etc., are all important backgrounds in Detective Chinatown 1900, which is also an important part of the movie’s story. They are all important backgrounds in “Detective Chinatown 1900”, and they are also the thorns in the side of Chinese people’s hearts.
As a result, the movie is populated by many different people who want to make a difference.
There are ordinary people like Ghost, who experienced loss and rebelled against injustice; there are local leaders like Pak Hin Ling, who fell into chaos in order to protect the Chinese; there are revolutionary youths like Pak Chun Pong and Cheng Sze Leung, who wished to change the old China; there are social heroes like Kam Leng Fuk, who helped the revolution; and there is even a hawk of the Qing court like Fei Yeung Koo, who was furious to fight with the Irish gangs after hearing about the humiliation of the court/country and left the message of “I’ll be back” before he died. He left his last words of “Save China” before his death.
You can say that “Detective Chinatown 1900” is opportunistic and patriotic, which is true, but you can’t deny the objective facts presented in the movie. The specific time setting is there, and telling the story of that time naturally includes the search for the roots, salvation of the country, and national righteousness.
Judging from the actual effect, the movie’s logic is clear, the attitude is correct, the strengths and weaknesses are avoided, and it is really effective.
Moreover, “Detective Chinatown 1900” does not fall into extreme incitement while stimulating national sentiments. The most typical is the ending scene, in which Qin Fu, after seeing the dark side of the U.S., angrily tore off the U.S. permanent resident card he had longed for, but Bai Xuanling picked up the pieces and glued them back to him, and told him in a serious manner “There is still much to learn here.”
Not only to adhere to the belief that “we should be self-improvement”, but also not blindly xenophobic, but also to have the patience and rationality to learn from the barbarians, the film grasped the principle of the balance.
That’s why I said I admire Chen Sicheng, who has been implementing the principle of “I have no one, I change, I change, I change,” and whenever people think he’s not going to be able to play, he’ll come up with something new based on market feedback.
The audience scolded Tang Tan 3 ads, male condensation, blind nonsense, “Detective Chinatown 1900” immediately soft reboot, no hard broad, down-to-earth narrative, in addition to the “sister to marry you” almost nothing on the handle on the point of laughter.
In addition, in fact, Chen Sicheng in last year’s “Decoded” tried a melodrama, but box office failed miserably, I think a very important point, is that the family and national sentiments shown in the ambiguous, obscure, but also by the audience accused of greasy, but to the “Detective Chinatown 1900” in the clear, more upright…. …
And unlike those filmmakers who spend years honing a film, Chen Sicheng’s output is far more efficient (Dai Mo, the co-director of “Detective Chinatown 1900”, is also a fierce general under his command)……. With this kind of cost-effective performance, it’s no wonder that he’s always at the forefront of public opinion.
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