Detective Chinatown 1900: Movie Review

What could have been a fascinating dissection of a murder mystery with immigration policies at stake, instead becomes a stupid action comedy.

Detective Chinatown 1900, about the murder of a white woman and a Chinese man as the main suspect in San Francisco’s Chinatown at the turn of the century, has a wildly different tone than that story suggests. Reasonably, one would expect an historical crime drama. The solving of a murder while cultural differences and immigrant backlash playout dictating public and political perceptions. It’s not that movie. This is a fictional and farcical action comedy instead. Even after having watched the movie it’s still difficult to reconcile that genre with that story.		2025 Directed by: Sicheng Chen, Mo Dai Screenplay by: Sicheng Chen Starring: Haoran Liu, Baoqiang Wang
Mainstream movies whether they’re an American or international production, will always tend towards action. That proponent of the crime drama at least makes sense even though it does not help the story at all. Meanwhile, the comedy (the primary genre), does not fit the story but it does at least make it more watchable at times. The story starts in China. Empress Dowager has sanctioned a couple of Chinese men to travel to America and bring back a traitor who had left China for England. Meanwhile, Qin Fu, a young enthusiastic budding detective who is training under Sherlock Holmes has arrived in San Francisco and has been hired by the accused father to clear his son’s name. Empress Dowager of the Qing dynasty was real and in power at that time; Sherlock Holmes is most certainly not real. But you can start to see the comedy take place with the inclusion of so many fictitious elements. Most of the problems start with the fact that the story does not begin until an hour into the movie. There are so many different Chinese groups and families involved and most of them are trying to hide from somebody else, or from other American immigrants, and in disagreement, that most early scenes are action comedy with characters haphazardly dodging other characters. The action unnecessarily delays the actual plot, while the comedy is occasionally funny but also frequently immature. Qin Fu was unable to convince the rich successful Chinese businessman Bai Xuanling that he is too green for the job so he tries to run away since he does not want to be responsible for the American senator (John Cusack) banning all Chinese immigrants in San Francisco. The proposed outcome of this murder trial. Qin Fu is forced to work with Gui, a Navajo Native American whose father was murdered alongside the white woman. Some comedy abounds, but mostly a whole lot of very racist Indigenous stereotypes fill up that partnership. While there is of course some discussion on the American vs immigrant dynamics in play at the time, the movie would much rather just run around Chinatown making stupid jokes than bother doing anything interesting. The nighttime scenery within San Franciso is beautifully shot, with all the building facades lit up with street lamps and torches. Most of the daytime exteriors are obviously green-screened/computer-generated. The money was all spent on the super extravagant interiors. The movie definitely wants to show off the wealth of the Chinese at that time. That doesn’t necessarily work as intended when so much of the movie is fictionalized for comedic purposes.