In summary, a smart kid visits his uncle in Thailand after failing to become a Detective in China (for reasons). Soon after arriving, the uncle is incriminated.. and the both work towards solving the case. The uncle knows the town (and is quite agile) and the kid is more than smart. Frenzy ensues.
It reminded me of old Chinese movies, similar to Jackie Chan's older work.. but there is more thought put into the script than the action.
** A note : Even if it is a Chinese production, this is a movie filmed completely in Thailand! Now, most of the cast speaks in Mandarin(?), several lines are delivered in Thai(?). So! Even though it seemed to be a properly translated movie (subtitles), I still felt some minor details were a bit confusing.. Didn't really affect my understanding of the main plot.
Anyway.. as for the movie itself : This is a chaotic and comedic mystery with more energy and colorful real-life-locations filled with extras than I was expecting. It has a darker tone underneath (as you would expect from a murder mystery), but it's hard to take it seriously. It is primarily gags, but doesn't mean that people that like to play along with the resolution of a case won't enjoy it. In fact, there is a lot of cleverness hidden amongst the jokes and unrealistic chasing all over "Chinatown". If anything, I enjoyed unraveling it as it went along. Sadly, it's more interesting than it is fun, but scarcely so. The action isn't particularly memorable, but the varied and a well defined cast makes up for it.
As of now, I can't see how the third movie in the series made so much money.. as this seems to be a one-and-done kind of thing. But we'll get there.
Entertaining enough to watch, but at 2 hours and 15 minutes it is a bit long.
