Detective Chinatown 1900

2025 2h 15m ZH

😐

6.2

MID

★6.2TMDB · 102

ComedyMysteryAction

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

In 1900, the mysterious murder of a white woman and a Native American man in San Francisco's Chinatown triggers a race against time as the Chinese suspect and the Native American's adopted Chinese son work to uncover the truth while a politician seeks to leverage the Chinese Exclusion Bill as well as the prevailing xenophobia and racism to close down Chinatown and elect himself as the mayor.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Wang Baoqiang
Ah Gui
Liu Haoran
Qin Fu
Chow Yun-Fat
Bai Xuanling
Bai Ke
Zheng Shiliang
Zhang Xincheng
Bai Zhenbang
Yue Yunpeng
Fei Yanggu
John Cusack
Grant
Tai Bo
Uncle Si

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Chen Sicheng
Writers: Chen Sicheng
Languages: English, Mandarin, Navajo
Countries: China, Hong Kong

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released last year.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 3 languages: English, Mandarin, Navajo.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: China, Hong Kong.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "Detective Chinatown Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Chen Sicheng, shot by Du Jie. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Nathan Wang. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Tang Hongjia shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Wang Baoqiang and Liu Haoran and Chow Yun-Fat carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Chen Sicheng directs. Du Jie behind the camera. Nathan Wang scores. Tang Hongjia cuts. Produced in China, Hong Kong. Dialogue in English, Mandarin, Navajo.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Released last year.
2Dialogue crosses 3 languages: English, Mandarin, Navajo.
3International production across 2 countries: China, Hong Kong.
4Part of the "Detective Chinatown Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
5Directed by Chen Sicheng, shot by Du Jie. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Nathan Wang. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Tang Hongjia shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Wang Baoqiang and Liu Haoran and Chow Yun-Fat carry the top of the cast.
9IMDB entry: tt34463310 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 8 themes, including "san francisco, california", "chinatown", "prequel", "murder".
11Released under 15 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Du Jie
Original score: Nathan Wang
Editing: Tang Hongjia
Runtime: 135 min · 2h 15m
Status: Released
Box office: $500,282,092
Original language: ZH
IMDB: Detective Chinatown 1900 (2025)

Part of

Detective Chinatown Collection

After failing to become a cop, a mystery enthusiast goes to visit his hapless cousin in Thailand. One is a brainiac and the other a twitchy loser, but together they're going to solve a murder.

Also by

Chen Sicheng

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2025-02-01
★ 6/10
At times this is actually quite a fun spoof along the lines of "Sherlock Holmes" meets "Charlie Chan" by way of "High Noon" but for the most part it's a mess of a film that goes on for far too long. With the Manchu court facing the great powers we saw in "55 Days at Peking" (1963) the Empress Dowager dispatches her finest officer to San Francisco to track down a traitor. As it happens, the Holmesian "Fu" (Haoran Liu) is also in that very city on a quest for the killer of the daughter of senator "Grant" (John Cusack). Quite swiftly his investigation and the imperial mission start to overlap as the enthusiastic "Fu" and his newfound spiritual Indian guide "Gui" (Baoqiang Wang) discover that the prime suspect in the killing (Steven Zhang) is the son of local entrepreneur "Bai" (Chow Yun-Fat) and that the senator is using this to stir anti-Chinese sentiment to the point where he can force them out and seize their property. What now ensues delivers a series of rather randomly assembled escapades that mix murder mystery with western with romance and add a good dose of skullduggery to boot as they try to prove the young "Bai" was framed. Fu and Wang make for a decent enough double act at times, but the story loses it's way way too often and after a while the characterisations - especially "Bai" and "Grant" become light-weight and strained parodies. Fortunately, after about two hours, auteur Sicheng Chen must have felt he was running out of file space and so decided he'd better wrap things up - and for that last quarter of an hour the story knits together things we knew with things we didn't and presents us with a rather feeble denouement that did sort of suggest that there could be more adventures to come for the likeable "Gui" and "Fu". What is potent is the closing statement from the elder "Bai" about remembering the importance of immigrant labour in establishing a country that was all too quick to shun that working community later when it suited it, but it's made in a cack-handed and over-the-top fashion and drowned out by an overpowering score and thus loses much of an impact that might actually resonate in an USA that's still unsure how to recognise those who do/did the work but perhaps didn't all have the same/right skin colour or paperwork. It has it's moments, just nowhere near enough of them.

Production companies