This article contains spoilers, so please read with caution.
As of February 13, 2021, Detective Chinatown 3 has a Douban score of 6.0. This just passed score is like the standard of the movie, although it cannot be classified into the camp of "bad films", although the film still has highlights and is better than most domestic films of the same type, but the shortcomings of the film are more eye-catching than the advantages. If the first and second parts of the movie "Detective Chinatown" can be called the excellent suspense and reasoning movies in China, then "Detective Chinatown 3" is far inferior to the first two in terms of both the narrative of the reasoning story and the presentation of comedic elements.
No matter how many far-fetched, unreasonable, and forcible plot settings in the movie reduce the IQ of the characters, and no matter how much Ming's advertising implantation affects the perception, from the perspective of story narration, "Detective Chinatown 3" is quite sloppy and quite chaotic.
Sloppiness is reflected in the sense of separation between the main story and the branch story of the side story. The main story, the Murder in the Chamber of Secrets, is the beginning of the transfer of the space in which the story takes place to Tokyo, and it is also the most critical clue that carries the elements of reasoning and the actions of the characters. The film's side line is clearly to reveal the identity of "Q". The story does revolve around the Murder in the Chamber of Secrets, and even through this case, it includes the elements of "Benguet Reasoning", "Murder in the Chamber of Secrets", "Gangsters", and "Business Wars", which are wonderful enough even if presented separately. Qin Feng, Tang Ren and their party stripped away the cocoon, various clues grass snake gray line, the end of the case has a reversal and sensationalism, although for the audience from the perspective of God, the murderer is obvious, but separately, the completion of the story of the secret room murder case is not bad. However, the Chamber of Secrets murders have nothing to do with the branch of revealing "Q". In order to make the main line and the branch line intersect, the screenwriter forcibly let "Q" kidnap the key figure of the secret room murder case, so that the audience has the illusion that there is a greater conspiracy behind the case, but the kidnapping is only "Q's" test of Qin Feng, and "Q" has nothing to do with the secret room case. The film's use of "coincidence" to explain the kidnapping is the inability of the narrative line arrangement and the lack of respect for the story.
Confusion is reflected in the arrangement of narrative perspectives. The main story is presented from the perspective of Qin Feng, whether it is the details of the case, the doubts, or the process of stripping away the cocoon, Qin Feng is only a rational bystander involved in this story. The side story involves the choice of good and evil in Qin Feng's heart, in which Qin Feng is the authority of emotional input, and the side story is presented from the perspective of God. The interspersed editing of the main line and the branch line makes the narrative perspective constantly jump, and Qin Feng is sometimes rational and sometimes emotional, which not only reduces the charm of Qin Feng's reasoning and solving the case, but also makes his inner choice look not anxious.
The film may want to use the main line and the confrontation between qin feng and "Q" related to the main line and the confrontation between Qin Feng and "Q" to express the theme related to the opening phrase "the journey of the avenue is also the world is public", but the split story and the drifting perspective make the focus of the narrative constantly jump, and even conceal the discussion of the main theme of the story.
In terms of comedic elements, the laughs of "Detective Chinatown 3" are old-fashioned and vulgar. One of the most glaring shortcomings of cinema is the use of audiovisual language with a strong "gaze" in many places. For example, the film uses the female breast as a funny baggage many times, and the words and deeds of other plots and other characters are not arranged in the film to dissolve the legitimacy of this "sexual gaze". When Masami Nagasawa played Kobayashi Kobayashi appeared, Tang Ren described it as a "good chest", and the camera focused on the actor's chest, and this line and the shot were useless to the story. In addition, when Qin Feng and his party cracked the number puzzle of "Q" in the parade, the prompt of the answer was actually the girl's chest circumference, which was not only vulgar and boring, but also weakened the mysterious and high-energy image of "Q".
With a simple reasoning plot and a sloppy and chaotic story, as a suspenseful reasoning movie, "Detective Chinatown 3" is a comprehensive regression compared to the first two films. But if there is any surprise in "Detective Chinatown 3" compared to the first two films, it may be the film's echo of the "Tang Detective Universe". At the end, the characters from the first two movies and the web series of the same name appear one by one, dividing the two camps of detectives and villains around the list of "Crimaster" and "Q", increasing the number of main characters while showing the grander background behind this IP.
According to the clues at the end of the film, the next story of "Detective Chinatown" will take place in London. London has a very suspenseful atmosphere due to elements such as Sherlock Holmes, Baker Street 221B, Agatha Christie, etc., and hopes that "Detective Chinatown 4" that takes place in such a city can pay more attention to the genre of the film itself, at least not to perfunctory reasoning without suspense.