Detective Chinatown 1900 (2025)

Keep a notepad handy for Detective Chinatown 1900, because the subplots multiply faster than the clues. It’s San Francisco, 1900: a mayoral candidate’s daughter is found dead in Chinatown, and the son of a powerful tong leader is the easy suspect. Chow Yun-fat plays that father, Bai Xuanling, and brings real gravity to every scene he’s in. Liu Haoran’s Qin Fu, a sharp young sleuth who studied under Sherlock Holmes, gets paired with Wang Baoqiang’s Ah Gui, raised by a Native American tribe, and their slapstick back-and-forth is the fun part. John Cusack plays Grant, the candidate using the case to push for shutting Chinatown down. The film takes the era’s anti-Chinese hostility seriously, but revolutionaries, a stage magician, an Irish gang and an envoy from the Empress Dowager crowd the buddy comedy out of its own movie. The villain is thin and the closing stretch gets preachy. A 5.2 because the period look is lavish and the mystery is overstuffed. $90.37 says you walk out rooting for a sequel with Qin, Gui and half as many subplots.

What works: Chow Yun-fat is commanding, the production design is opulent, and the film takes the history of anti-Chinese prejudice seriously.

What doesn’t: The bloated cast and endless subplots squeeze out the buddy comedy, and both the villain and the political ending land flat.

Who it’s for: Fans of the Detective Chinatown series and anyone who likes a costume mystery with slapstick between the clues.