After the events in Bangkok and New York, Tang Ren and Qin Feng are invited to Tokyo to investigate another crime that has occurred there, leading to a battle between the strongest detectives in Asia. The film starts with Tang and Qin on plane eating junk food and Tang needs to use the bathroom. Later, he was escorted to meet the suspected murder of the Don who stated not guilty. Following examination of the body, Tang found a needle prick in the victim's body, which was not reported in the autopsy report. Also, he used a visual stimulisor of the broken glasses and found the missing glass from the murdered Don's car. Tang convinces the judge that Anna had committed the murder by showing the murder weapon and examining the CCTV footages. Anna was the daughter of the suspected murderer, who left her and her mother in their worst times. Driven by revenge of her mother's sufferings and death, Anna planned to make her father suffer, by making him suspect of the murder she had committed. The film ends with all the detectives from the investigation app united against Q, who turned out to be a group of individuals with high IQ, planning to destroy the established systems of the world.
The film was initially planned for release in China for the 2020 Chinese New Year but the release was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in China.[5] The film was rescheduled and released on February 12, 2021.[6]
Warner Bros. Pictures planned to distribute the film in select theaters in the United States on January 24, 2020,[7] but the release was postponed likely for the same reasons as the initial delay in China. As of 2023, the film has not been released in the United States.
Reception
Box office
Detective Chinatown 3 made RMB 673 million ($104 million) in advance tickets for its opening day and RMB 950 million ($147 million) for its first week, the highest amount ever in China beating Avengers: Endgame ($95.5 million) and resulting in a projected opening weekend of over $200 million.[8][9] The film grossed $163 million (RMB 1.05 billion) on its first day of release, the biggest opening day in world history (beating Endgame's $157 million in North America) and pushing weekend projections to as high as $400 million.[10][11] The film ended up debuting to RMB 2.56 billion ($398 million), becoming the biggest opening weekend ever in a single territory (beating Endgame's $357 million in April 2019).[12] The film grossed over US$424 million in its opening weekend, making it the ninth-highest-grossing opening for a film. By the end of its second weekend the film had a running total of RMB 4.36 billion ($673 million), making it the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2021 and the sixth-highest-grossing non-English film of all time.[13][14]
Critical response
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film 3/5 stars, calling it "more no-holds-barred slapstick action".[15]Todd McCarthy of Deadline Hollywood was less favorable, writing: "Its enormous box office numbers notwithstanding, I have to rate Detective Chinatown 3 as something of a disappointment after the raucously engaging first two entries."[16] John Berra of Screen International gave the film a favorable review, writing that it "exudes a heightened zaniness which is most welcome in today's largely homogenised franchise landscape" and "is an insanely colourful, no expense spared blockbuster".[17]
Chinese audiences on Maoyan gave the film a 8.8/10, while those on Douban gave it an average score of 5.6.[11]
