Detective Chinatown 3: Feelings can't hide mediocrity

Author: Zhong Ling

Finally, the movie "Detective Chinatown 3", which I had been thinking about, was released on the first day of the Chinese New Year a year late due to the epidemic. Unfortunately, the greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment.

Undoubtedly, in this year's Spring Festival file, the suspense movie "Detective Chinatown 3" directed by Chen Sicheng was originally the most high-hope film, but its reputation was not ideal after its release, although the box office is still hot, but the score on Douban has fallen below 6.0. This result, of course, is not what I, a suspense detective fan, are happy to see, and I think that the biggest original sin that leads to the decline in word-of-mouth is that there is too little suspense reasoning and insufficient logic, and the single narrative mode makes the viewer have aesthetic fatigue.

"Detective Chinatown 3" is the third in this series of movies, but unfortunately it is still continuing the mode of the first two films, crime and suspense, Qin Feng, played by Liu Haoran, is responsible for logical reasoning, and Tang Ren, played by Wang Baoqiang, is responsible for spoofing. It is still the same recipe as before, but the taste is not as good as before. It is also the setting of "reasoning + comedy", but because of the weakening of the suspense reasoning part, the simplicity and rudeness of the case, the shallow vulgarity of the laughter, and the chaos and disorder of the structure, so that there is no longer a slight noise after the atmosphere of careful thinking and fear.

The film is a process of crime, investigation and reasoning, and the emergence of the real murderer. Following the "Bangkok Gold Murder Case" and the "New York Five Elements Serial Murder Case", Tang Ren and Qin Feng were invited by Noda Hao to Tokyo to investigate a bizarre murder in the secret room. Imagine "Detective Chinatown 1", is known for its brain-burning, which is also an essential element of a successful suspense movie, its detective process is complex, tortuous, changeable, people can never guess the culprit of the crime, can only follow the protagonist's footsteps in the fog of constant reversal, reversal, and reversal, follow the protagonist's footsteps to peel back the cocoon and approach the truth. But what about Detective Chinatown 3? Too thin, so simple that you are not surprised by the appearance of the real murderer, simple enough to expose many clues early; the plot also has many unreasonable points, whether it is the motive of the real murderer, or the murderer's method, or the life story behind it lacks logic and cannot justify itself.

"Detective Chinatown 3" is also full of all kinds of derogatory and contemptuous passages for women, which makes people feel uncomfortable. The physical humiliation that often occurs, the beating of innocent female nurses... The vulgar jokes with the "male gaze" as the element are one after another. The slightly heavier female characters also have a derogatory connotation, the real murderer Kobayashi Anduna and her mother are portrayed as female figures who cannot survive without the protection of men and thus sell their flesh; the female judge who looks sassy is fascinated by male sex in the serious courtroom and squeezes her eyebrows with each other... Malicious objectification of women, demeaning women, vilifying female images, the bottom line of "Detective Chinatown 3" for fun is getting lower and lower.

And Tang Ren, as a funny person, although only to set off the high IQ of Qin Feng, who is serious about investigating the case, and jointly create a contrast with it, but it has a slight role in the two previous works, he can always inadvertently wake up Qin Feng, so as to solve the key points in the puzzle. But in "Detective Chinatown 3", this character is as greedy and lustful as ever, but he has lost the only "muse" role at that point, pretending to be crazy and stupid to be outrageous, only making people feel noisy.

Moreover, Yi Rong disguises his hot eyes and runs in the bustling street to avoid being chased, is this not a bridge section that has been used in the first two films? What is the point of repeating yourself over and over again?

Is director Chen Sicheng really not careful? No, it's not.

From the cast of "Detective Chinatown 3", we can see that he used his heart and played a hand of love cards. He invited many Japanese stars who were or are still hot to play roles in the film, Yukazu Miura, who was popular in Asia in the 1970s and 1980s, Nanami Suzuki, who became popular in Asia in the 1990s for "Tokyo Love Story", Masami Nagasawa, who debuted and became popular at the beginning of the 21st century, and Japanese actors such as Tadanobu Asano, Shota Someya, and Satoshi Mugi, but such a "luxurious" lineup, in addition to proving that their acting skills are enough to crush the protagonist, what role does it have? It is undeniable that their appearance does add a lot of color to the film, but this does not make up for the shortcomings of the film itself, nor can it change the essential mediocrity of "Detective Chinatown 3".

Putting the cart before the horse, the creators should still shift their focus to polishing their works, and then think about how to add icing on the cake! (Ling Zhong)

Source: China Women's Daily