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ComedyMysteryCrime

Detective Chinatown 1900

Directed by Chen Sicheng, Dai Mo · 2025 ·

LLM fact sheet (.md)

Answer Summary: Is Detective Chinatown 1900 worth watching?

Detective Chinatown 1900 (2025) earns a 71% Celluloid Score — Recommended. Recommended — recommended by most critics and audiences.Critics and audiences are closely aligned on this one.

Quick Verdict: What is the Celluloid Score for Detective Chinatown 1900?

Averaged from five public sources (critic, audience, Metascore, Letterboxd, IMDb). See how we calculate scores.

71%
Celluloid Score Recommended

Four-source breakdown

85% Critic Score
80% Audience
★★½☆☆ Letterboxd 2.9
6 IMDb /10
Runtime
2h 15m
Cast
Wang Baoqiang , Liu Haoran , Chow Yun-fat

Where to watch in India

Not yet streaming in India — check local listings.

Why this score?

  • Majority of critics rated it fresh (85%).
  • General viewers mostly liked it (80%).
  • Celluloid Score 71% averages these 4 public rating sources — our own composite, not a third-party trademark score.

Best for

  • Fans of Comedy

Not ideal for

  • Viewers who only watch top-tier, 90%+ rated films

Scores reflect data indexed at build time. Component sources are shown on this page; Celluloid Score is our composite, not a third-party trademark. Scoring policy

Is Detective Chinatown 1900 worth watching?

Yes — Detective Chinatown 1900 earns a 71% Celluloid Score. Recommended — recommended by most critics and audiences.

Critics Consensus

An unwieldy, overlong mix of slapstick and history lesson that still lands real points about exclusion-era America — Wang Baoqiang and Liu Haoran keep the sprawl watchable even when the mystery machinery creaks.

Celluloid Critics Consensus

Critics and audiences are closely aligned on this one.

What is Detective Chinatown 1900 about?

Chen Sicheng's franchise rewinds to 1900 San Francisco, where the murder of a white woman in Chinatown puts the entire immigrant quarter on trial. Herbalist Qin Fu and frontier tracker Ah Gui — an unlikely Holmes-and-Watson pairing — must find the real killer before opportunistic politicians use the case as a pretext to raze Chinatown for good. Set against the machinery of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the period whodunit became one of the biggest hits of China's 2025 Lunar New Year season, grossing over $450 million.

Critic Reviews

critic Detective Chinatown 1900

Detective Chinatown 1900 Review: A Lavish Prequel That Loses Its Own Case

Detective Chinatown 1900 rewinds Chen Sicheng's blockbuster franchise to Exclusion-era San Francisco with staggering production values and serious historical ambitions — then buries both under tonal whiplash, bloat, and jokes that curdle.

For franchise completists and admirers of Chow Yun-fat, who is worth the ticket alone. Everyone else can skip: the spectacle is real, but the film underneath it is a muddle.

Dr. Amara Okonkwo World Cinema Editor

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