Detective Chinatown (2020)

No Consistency

I first started watching the drama because the trailer looked good as I enjoy watching detective shows. But i found myself struggling to finish halfway through. This drama has two separate stories lines. One that takes place in Thailand, and one out of Thailand. The first half of the show involved a group of detectives solving a mystery in Thailand. The first storyline was well thought off. There was alot of suspense and action that kept me on my toes. After that was solved, the drama suddenly shifted scenery and focused on another group of detectives, not linked to the group in Thailand. The plot for the second storyline felt childish in comparison to the first. Personally, I like to see characters grow. So the fact that the Thailand group was just cut off like that was a big no no for me. But because there were 3-4 episodes left, I just endured till the end.

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Mystery or Farce?

I can't decide whether this is a detective series or a farce.

The series can roughly be divided into 3 main cases. It is highly unusual for a detective series to suddenly do away with the (initial) detective altogether halfway through, but this is what happens in the third part of the series (Episodes 9-12). And I don't mean that the detective disappears as part of the plot. I mean that he basically disappears from the plot.

Some people have suggested just appreciating Episodes 1 to 8 (the first two cases with the detective Lin Mo) alone. This is worth thinking about, so let's first consider the first two cases.

The first case is somewhat draggy, and since most viewers are not expecting to watch a supernatural series and will assume that the seemingly supernatural elements will be explained away, it is fairly easy to guess that some of the characters claiming to have encountered supernatural occurrences are conspiring to commit crimes. Although the exact details may be a bit more unpredictable, the revelations of the crimes are not going to be altogether awe-inspiring. Furthermore, the revelations of the truth don't always tally with the characters' behaviors when they are with those in cahoots with them (for example, a character who is supposed to have staged a car accident seems truly surprised that the car has gone out of control).

The second case is a flashback to Lin Mo's past. Having a flashback itself is fine, though in preparing the audience for the flashback, the the earlier episodes make certain references to Lin Mo's past that may confuse the viewer, making it seem like they have missed an earlier series or some episodes. Maybe cleverer editing would have made things better.

The twist in the second story doesn't really make sense (actually it is not much of a twist, the ending of the first story basically gives the ending of the second story away). Sure, the real villain by be really cunning, but how on earth did she manage to get the manpower and resources to pull off everything? Certainly her beauty alone isn't enough.

Also, while the second story takes place earlier in time, the female cop, Sasha, seems like a much more capable cop in the story. In contrast, in the first story, she seems rather incompetent as a cop despite having more experience. The characterization does not really make sense even if the focus is on Lin Mo's ability in cracking the cases.

Next, we inevitably have to consider the third story. After spending 8 episodes showing Lin Mo's prowess in solving mysteries from Episodes 1-8, he basically disappears in Episodes 9-12. I do not really buy into the idea of treating it as a separate story because it is meant to take place in the same fictional world after the first case of the series has ended. The series also actually quite heavily emphasizes this too, with Sasha going for a briefing about a group of missing youngsters who happen to be the children of very influential people. And as though we need to be reminded of the drastic change, the voice-over in the opening credits changes from Lin Mo to Koji who announces that it's still the same series but everything is going to be different (yeah, I know). It's either a bad attempt at pretending that the change is deliberate or a bold attempt to do something different with the detective genre.

As a mystery story, like the first story, it is a little obvious from early on that the ghost elements in the third must have been staged because this is not a supernatural-themed series (despite Lin Mo's apparent ability to see ghosts who do not tell him anything important anyway). In fact, the ghost element doesn't even seem to be taken very seriously. There is some fun in the third story, but the twists are rather weak. Furthermore, the tremors from the sudden disappearance of Lin Mo in the story continues all the way to the end: even till the last episode, I was wondering if Lin Mo would be woven back into the plot.

There may well be a hint that the first two stories take place in a game world, but this wouldn't really make sense although we see Lin Mo playing a game at the end of Episode 8 that is mentioned towards the end of the final episode. (This actually only makes the series more perplexing: why harp on the fact that there is some tenuous link between the characters in Episode 1 to 8 and in Episodes 9 to 12?) Furthermore, the multiple flashbacks to Lin Mo's childhood in Episodes 1-8 and the reference to the Q symbol at the end of Episode 8 heavily suggest that the third story is going to be about the case involving how Lin Mo's mother is killed. Unfortunately, this is simply dropped. One may suspect that there is some attempt to intrigue viewers in preparation for a possible sequel, but is the sequel going to feature Detective Lin Mo or Detective Koji? In fact, are they detectives or gamers?

In fact, the series ends up being rather farcical. The third story comes complete with an "awards ceremony" for the best actors in the staged events because, well, this really wealthy detective kid has insane amounts of money to splurge on staging events at the scale of making a movie just to trap a criminal. To add on to the possibly unintentional farce, even though Koji manages to solve the case that he is entrusted to by the dying mother of a gamer who has disappeared, he ends up consoling her with photoshopped photos of her dead son by pretending that he is still alive. (Hey, maybe you could have done that from the start?)

To be fair, Lin Mo does make an interesting detective character. A lot of work is done to form the foundation of further development, but he suddenly disappears from the story. He is like a walking forensics lab that churns out instant results. The ability to sniff and identify the trace of anything with a smell is a sort of unique superpowerish trait even though it is quite unbelievable (given that it is said that he has "trained" himself to smell things so well). We can certainly evaluate the first two stories with Lin Mo on their own merit, but it remains that the series feels really incomplete whether we ignore Episodes 9-12 or not. A sequel with Lin Mo as the main detective may still be watchable, but I don't know if that is ever going to happen.

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Cliffhanger,, 2 different story

the story seems to be related to the CT2 movie

hope the story is finished SOON WITH SAME CAST,, before all the stories are forgotten


the story is not over ,,, cliffhangers! , there are 2 stories or 2 PARTS of the cast ,, it would be better if they finish one story well rather than combine it, and in the end it doesn't finish, it can't be denied that the story is interesting enough to watch because there are so many suspects that it makes the audience keep asking "who is the real killer"

and also adding some comedy scenes that are not exaggerated but quite entertaining


for a drama with a story Investigation that requires logic to think is quite interesting but the scene does not make sense



And each episode sometimes starts with a beginning that doesn't seem like a continuation but the case continues, continues the case but doesn't follow the previous episode, immediately investigates the next clue without discussing the clue in the previous episode



### ACTING ###
The acting of each cash is good enough,

but as his role as a chemistry teacher, he shouldn't smell the "chemical" by sniffing it right away, because it's a basic prohibition, it should just be flicked by hand.








Case 1 ,, they (with headmaster) tell about triangle love but since when did they say a shui and peishan there is in love too? and how di AWEN get to Qinjun's car? Delivered by dinan? Or alone? ,, only one possibility is that she went alone, concluded from the time she met Linmo in prison, so they should be able to rewind and look for her when she went to the car

Case 2,, (flashback?)
Police get a murder report, but the scene is locked so linmo can SNEAK in, who call the police?


#case 3 ##
When opening the game it is said that Tyrant is the first time to unmask ,, but when the flashback they are not wearing masks ,, and the editing is lacking ,, the conclusion during the last war was told by Haoer ,, that Big Goose said with certainty that in the airdrop there was bullets, when? When he say like that? ,




Questions

1. Who is calling the police?
2. Who is Q?
3. Linmo real identity?
‎4. the purpose of killing his parents
5. How did Linmo and Xia Ai meet? They are of different ages
6. How long has the smile face case been over?
7. What happened next to ivy?
8. What is the relationship between Q and Ivy?
9. ‎what smell is there on the ivy body? and where did linmo smell?
10. that smell is on linmo mother killer body?
11. ‎from when he can sensitive withh sense?

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Two different set of detective story

First of all, I didn’t watch episode 9-12 so I might be wrong about the casts and might change my review... anyways:/

This is the first Chinese detective drama I watched and I like it so far but then after episode 8, I watched a bit of episode 9, the drama started another set of detective story with new casts. I would’ve continue on watching but when the drama just suddenly started to have a whole new detective story, I just think there’s no point of continuing. I felt very disappointed when the first part of detective story didn’t go on plus the first part detective story cast was not even in the second part so I just gave up watching episode 9-12. Lastly, I still love the first part detective story, and my ratings are basically only for episode 1-8.

After basically 2 years, I dropped it.

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