Tang ren jie tan an (2015) Reviews

• Funny, Inspired, entertaining

  timbermisc2016-01-16

  I don't speak Mandarin, but I thought it was a quality movie. 100 gags; the audience was laughing lightly through most of the movie. This movie was produced in China and has similarities to a Jackie Chan movie, except that it is slightly better. It has a silly, comedic timing mixed with some serious, violent scenes. The audience was filled. I only speak English, but it had subtitles. They spoke rather fast, so I could not keep up with their words, but the scenes told the story. Basically, two detectives are on a hunt for gold and a murderer. There is everything in this movie: a beauty queen, a tiny amount of sexiness, mobster actors, a straight man comedic partnership, racing scenes, dancing, excellent marital arts fights and beautiful scenes.

  More

• A Comedy of Great Quality

  liyiren2016-02-01

  This is not just a funny comedy, but also a well-made film with great quality. The actions,funny scenes,dialogues were orchestrated in such a great way that it drew every second of my attention. Wang Baoqiang did a great job in playing a character that is both silly and witty, wild and cowardly, someone you want to slap in the face but also give a dollar out of pity. I usually justify things in a quantitative way. And here is the math: The average driving speed of the vehicles in the movie is about 20% of the avg. driving speed in 007 Spectre; but the car chase scenes are five times more intense with the cars looking way faster that those in 007 Spectre. My opinion might be biased since I was able to "fully" understand the movie with my full Chinese proficiency, and I also thought Spectre was the worst 007 movie which totally wasted two hours of my life. Anyway, I thought this movie was a job well done.

  More

• funny, kept my attention all the way, excellent for a second-time director.

  monchocolat2016-06-16

  I must say Chinatown Detective is never the best detective film, but it's a good one. Funny, plot reasonably complicated, a twist in the end. Two young actors' performance is convincing enough, especially the girl. Her last scene really struck me and many other Chinese audiences. I doubt if those who didn't see any good out of it watched it throughout at all. It doesn't have the fanciest or epoch- breaking technical innovation, but neither do most filmmakers around the world. For instance, the gunfight in the hospital is a good scene. The escape from the police station might be a tribute to Jackie Chan's earlier films. There are many funny moments where I got good laughs. But not understanding the Chinese language will cause a problem to that. A few of the actors are renowned for their comedian work in their local dialect. The robber wearing glasses are famous for his comedies in his Northeastern dialect which is a big contrast to the location of the film. If a viewer doesn't understand Chinese or Thai, they might not know that the Thai police chief would give instructions in Thai but threaten to fire the two Chinese officers in Chinese. The humour isn't that Chinese people are making fun of Chinese people. It's that the safest joke you can ever make is about yourself. After all, character arrangements are only film characters. They're not always meant to be realistic, especially in the comedic bits. It's strange if anyone imagine all Chinese people will be so ridiculous as certain characters. There's also deep philosophy hidden in the film which I wonder how many Hollywood popular films have. If you don't watch Chinatown Detective carefully, you probably have entirely forgotten about the caption at the beginning of the film. In fact, the ending of the film or two young characters in the film is the evidence to the caption at the beginning. It is also in the discussion between the two youngsters. Therefore, whoever says this film is a complete failure or anyone who watches this is an idiot will be an idiot in my eyes, honestly. Reviewers like BasicLogic might lack basic logic in certain ways. If I don't like some film, I won't say this film is made of utter stupidity, because it's non-sense. Only seeing the problems in Chinese film industry instead of problems in their own film industry (I guarantee there must be some as there's no such thing as a perfect industry) is just biased and arrogant. Whoever says this film isn't funny at all, it's because people have different perception on humour. I never found Annie Hall funny. I thought The Hangover franchise or Due Date weren't so funny for my taste. But I enjoyed The Philadelphia Story and Divorzio all'Italiana. I don't think it's the best idea to judge negatively upon a comedy which is not your taste. (Not to mention you don't understand the Chinese language, which means you won't get any linguistic humour.) On the other hand, an art-house film or documentary lover shouldn't look down upon a good comedy simply because it was made to be entertaining. Ultimately, most films are made for entertainment. If you want to be high-brow, that's your own business. But don't laugh at others who want to have a good laugh. I would personally recommend this film. If there are people who hate it, that's not their fault. But that's not the film's fault either.

  More

• Funny film.

  subxerogravity2016-01-22

  I thought the movie was very, very funny. It had some very good jokes in it. You get nervous seeing comedies in a different language than your own and wonder if you'll get the jokes, but the jokes were a simplistic base of comedy that everyone can laugh at Plus several of the jokes were visual slap stick that was just universal. In fact the movie all together was visually simulating, which showed Thailand's Chinatown to be a very colorful place. The two main actors in this were an exceptional team as well. The movie is about a young man who fails out of the police academy despite his exceptional skills in observation (he plays the straight man). TY get over his depression he visits an uncle who lives in Thailand (he plays the screw ball) Together they have to solve a murder while looking for a gangster's gold. It was a really fun, entertaining film to watch.

  More

• Enjoyable movie

  robinsin-055542017-03-15

  I have seen lot of Chinese movies, mostly garbage in terms of story line and quality of production. However this movie was quite well made movie. I'm impressed. Some people may don't like this movie because it is not right taste, but I think this movie was enjoyable and truly entertained. I recommend for who like comedy, action, thriller movie. I do not recommend if you like dark and serious movie.

  More