''Detective Chinatown 2'' () is a 2018 Chinese
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
-
mystery
Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
*Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange''
Films
* ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film
* ''Mystery'' ( ...
buddy film
The buddy film is a subgenre of adventure and comedy film in which two people are put together and are on an adventure, a quest, or a road trip. The two often contrast in personality, which creates a dynamic onscreen different from a pairing of ...
directed and written by
Chen Sicheng
Chen Sicheng (born February 22, 1978 in Shenyang) is a Chinese actor, director and screenwriter. He graduated from the Central Academy of Drama, and is known for his leading roles in the films ''A Young Prisoner's Revenge'' and ''Spring Fever''; ...
, starring
Wang Baoqiang
Wang Baoqiang (; born 29 May 1984) is a Chinese actor, martial artist and director. His debut role was that of Yuan Fengming in the movie ''Blind Shaft'', for which he shared the Best New Performer prize at the 2003 Golden Horse Awards.
Early ...
and
Liu Haoran
Liu Haoran (; born 10 October 1997), also known as Turbo Liu, is a Chinese actor.
Liu ranked 18th on ''Forbes'' China Celebrity 100 list in 2020, 19th in 2019, and 89th in 2017.
In 2021, Liu became the youngest actor to gross over 15 billion RM ...
. A sequel to 2015's ''
Detective Chinatown
''Detective Chinatown'' () is a 2015 Chinese comedy-mystery buddy film directed by Chen Sicheng and starring Wang Baoqiang and Liu Haoran. It was released in China on 31 December 2015. A sequel, was released in February 2018, and a third film w ...
'', the film was released in China on 16 February 2018. It has grossed over
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
544 million worldwide, making it the
fifth-highest-grossing film of all time in China.
A sequel, ''
Detective Chinatown 3
''Detective Chinatown 3'' () is a 2021 Chinese comedy mystery buddy film directed and written by Chen Sicheng, starring Wang Baoqiang and Liu Haoran. It is a sequel to ''Detective Chinatown 2'' (2018) and is the third installment in the ''Detec ...
'', was released in February 2021.
Plot
Qin Feng (
Liu Haoran
Liu Haoran (; born 10 October 1997), also known as Turbo Liu, is a Chinese actor.
Liu ranked 18th on ''Forbes'' China Celebrity 100 list in 2020, 19th in 2019, and 89th in 2017.
In 2021, Liu became the youngest actor to gross over 15 billion RM ...
) thought he was going to attend his distant uncle Tang Ren's (
Wang Baoqiang
Wang Baoqiang (; born 29 May 1984) is a Chinese actor, martial artist and director. His debut role was that of Yuan Fengming in the movie ''Blind Shaft'', for which he shared the Best New Performer prize at the 2003 Golden Horse Awards.
Early ...
) wedding, which turned out to be a hoax. Tang Ren had deceived Qin Feng to come to
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
for another purpose.
The godfather of
Chinatown
A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
, Uncle Qi (
Kenneth Tsang
Kenneth Tsang Kong (; 5 October 1934 – 27 April 2022) was a Hong Kong actor. Tsang's career spanned 50 years and included a variety of acting roles. Tsang won the Best Supporting Actor Award at the 34th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2015.
Early ...
), gathered the world's best detectives from an app called Crimaster (which allows real detectives to upload their cases for the online community to solve them) and sets up a competition to locate his grandson's killer within one week for a reward of five million
dollars
Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, Un ...
. His grandson Jason was found in a temple with his heart torn out and an unknown symbol on a table near him.
Unexpectedly, Qin Feng, the world's second-top detective and the world's third-top detective noticed another similar murder in the Hudson River one week before the investigation began. A white woman was also killed but lost her kidney. The two men pulled out surveillance videos of the two crime scenes and found that a man appeared at both crime scenes. They identify the man as Song Yi (
Xiao Yang). However, after observing that Song Yi is right-handed, Qin Feng concludes that he could not be the killer since evidence suggests that the killer is left-handed. While Qin Feng and Tang Ren knew that Song Yi was not the killer, this was not everyone else's consensus, and so the duo had to clear Song Yi's name and find the real killer.
Eventually, with the help of Tang Ren's knowledge of
Feng shui and ''
Wu Xing Wuxing may refer to:
Places in China Counties and districts
*Huzhou, formerly Wuxing County, Zhejiang, China
*Wuxing District (吴兴区), central district of Huzhou
Subdistricts (五星街道)
*Wuxing Subdistrict, Mudanjiang, in Dong'an District ...
'', Qin Feng discovered the killer's motive. Due to the unique location of the murders, the time of the crimes, the eight characters of the victims' birthdays and the organs, he concluded the whole of New York was being used as an altar.(the elements fire, water, wood, metal, and earth were used to determine the locations, date, and the respective organ to be removed)
Finally, they find out that the doctor who was battling cancer believed that doing ancient Taoist rituals could grant him immortality, and was behind the murders. The doctor kills himself after being found out.
Qin Feng deduces that Song Yi is actually the mysterious man "Q", the top-ranked detective of Crimaster. Song Yi solved the case very early on and used the doctor's patterns to cover up his own murder of a sex trafficking ringleader who abducted his sister. Qin Feng lets him go, but later KIKO reveals that "Q"'s IP address does not locate him in America, making Song Yi as "Q" unlikely. "Q" is therefore still at large.
Cast
*
Wang Baoqiang
Wang Baoqiang (; born 29 May 1984) is a Chinese actor, martial artist and director. His debut role was that of Yuan Fengming in the movie ''Blind Shaft'', for which he shared the Best New Performer prize at the 2003 Golden Horse Awards.
Early ...
as Tang Ren (), Qin Feng's distant uncle and a
Thai-Chinese
Thai Chinese (also known as Chinese Thais, Sino-Thais), Thais of Chinese origin ( th, ชาวไทยเชื้อสายจีน; ''exonym and also domestically''), endonym Thai people ( th, ชาวไทย), are Chinese descenda ...
swindler
A charlatan (also called a swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or a similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, power, fame, or other advantages through pretense or deception. Synonyms for ''charlatan'' include ''sh ...
who comes to
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
to solve a real case.
*
Liu Haoran
Liu Haoran (; born 10 October 1997), also known as Turbo Liu, is a Chinese actor.
Liu ranked 18th on ''Forbes'' China Celebrity 100 list in 2020, 19th in 2019, and 89th in 2017.
In 2021, Liu became the youngest actor to gross over 15 billion RM ...
as Qin Feng (), Tang Ren's nephew and one of the best detectives of the world. He's the world's second-top detective in the ranking of Crimaster (a app which allows real detectives to upload their cases for the online community to solve them).
*
Xiao Yang as Song Yi (), a man who is the main suspect of the murder of Uncle Qi's nephew and one of the suspects of being the Q, the top-ranked detective of Crimaster.
*
Natasha Liu Bordizzo
Natasha Liu Bordizzo (born 25 August 1994) is an Australian actress. She made her debut portraying the character of Snow Vase in Netflix's '' Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny''. In 2019, she portrayed the character of Helena in ...
as Officer Chen Ying (), a
Chinese-American
Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from m ...
NYPD
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
detective and Tang Ren's love interest.
* Shang Yuxian as KIKO, a
hacker
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...
from
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
who specializes in solving cases by hacking the
police
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...
database and stealing them and the #5 of Crimaster. Her nickname is "Ultimate Computer Hacker" and she is Qin Feng's love interest.
* Brett Azar as Wild Bull Billy, a tough detective from
USA
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
and a veteran from
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
. He's the #9 of Crimaster and is notorious for using extreme violence and brute force to solve crimes.
*
Bai Ling
Bai Ling (, born October 10, 1966) is a Chinese-American actress known for her work in the films ''The Crow'', ''Nixon'', ''Red Corner'', '' Crank: High Voltage'', ''Dumplings'', ''Wild Wild West'', ''Anna and the King'', ''Southland Tales'', and ...
as Aaimali Kunana, a crazy
psychic detective
A psychic detective is a person who investigates crimes by using purported paranormal psychic abilities. Examples have included postcognition (the paranormal perception of the past), Psychometry (paranormal), psychometry (information psychicall ...
from
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
and the #7 of Crimaster. She is famous for using
psychic
A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...
and
supernatural skills to solve cases.
*Benja Kay Thomas as Detective Charlene the Church Lady! She is famous for her Kung Fu skills.
*
*
Wang Xun as Lu Guofu ()
* Yang Jinci as Malian (Horse-like face) ()
*
Yuen Wah
Yuen Wah (born Yung Kai-chi; 2 September 1952) is a Hong Kong action film actor, action choreographer, stuntman and martial artist who has appeared in over 160 films and over 20 television series.
Early life
Born Yung Kai-chi on 2 September 1950 ...
as Mou Jau-kin ()
*
Satoshi Tsumabuki
is a Japanese actor. His breakthrough film was ''Waterboys'' for which he was nominated for the 'Best Actor' award at the Japanese Academy Awards, and won the 'Newcomer of the Year' prize. He is also the bassist and lead singer of the Japanese ...
as Hiroshi Noda (
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
: 野田宏/
Nihongo
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic languages, Japonic or Japanese-Ryukyuan languages, Ryukyu ...
: 野田浩, ''Noda Hiroshi''), the top detective from
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
and the #3 of Crimaster. He is considered the main rival of the protagonist Qin Feng, due to his almost perfect investigative skills, which displeases Qin Feng.
*
Michael Pitt
Michael Carmen Pitt (born April 10, 1981) is an American actor, model, and musician. Pitt is known in film for his roles in ''Murder by Numbers'' (2002), Bernardo Bertolucci's '' The Dreamers'' (2003), Gus Van Sant's '' Last Days'' (2005), and M ...
as Dr. James Springfield
*
Kenneth Tsang
Kenneth Tsang Kong (; 5 October 1934 – 27 April 2022) was a Hong Kong actor. Tsang's career spanned 50 years and included a variety of acting roles. Tsang won the Best Supporting Actor Award at the 34th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2015.
Early ...
as Qishu (Uncle Qi), the Godfather of
Chinatown
A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...
and the dragonhead of the local
Chinese mafia
A triad ( zh , t=三合會 , s=三合会 , cy=sāam hahp wúi , j=saam1 hap6 wui6‑2 , hp=sān hé huì , first=t,j ) is a Chinese transnational organized crime syndicate based in Greater China and has outposts in various countries with signific ...
.
Production
Filming lasted for 40 days in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
[
]
Reception
Box office
''Detective Chinatown 2'' earned $541.1 million in China, and $3 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $544.1 million.
Critical response
On review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, and an average rating of . On Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100, based on five critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Users on the Chinese site Douban
Douban.com (), launched on 6 March 2005, is a Chinese online database and social networking service that allows registered users to record information and create content related to film, books, music, recent events, and activities in Chinese c ...
gave the film an average rating of 6.7/10, while those at Tianjin Maoyan Culture Media gave it a 9.0 rating.
Awards and nominations
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Detective Chinatown 2
2010s buddy comedy films
2010s comedy mystery films
Chinese comedy mystery films
Chinese detective films
Films directed by Chen Sicheng
Films scored by Nathan Wang
Chinese sequel films
Wuzhou Film Distribution films
Wanda Pictures films
Films set in New York City
2018 comedy films
2010s Mandarin-language films