action, Allen, Allen Ai, Bu Yu, Busted Water Pipes, China, comedy, Eddie Peng, Fu Hang, Huang Yan, Jiang Xueming, Jing Ci, Liu Yi Chun, movies, Prem Yadav, Yan Peilun, Yang Haoyu, Yang Zhen, Zhang Qi, Zhou Difei, Zhou You
February 4, 2026
by Carla Hay
Directed by Zhou Difei
Mandarin with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional Chinese cities of Hoping and Kingstown, the action comedy film “Buster Water Pipes” features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with a few white people and one black person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: The Hoping Police Department is in danger of shutting down because the city has no serious crimes, so the police fabricate crimes to keep their jobs, when they come across a group of real thieves posing as plumbers for the police station’s busted water pipes.
Culture Audience: “Busted Water Pipes” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and silly action comedies about cops and robbers.
“Busted Water Pipes” tries very hard to be a hilarious action comedy about cops and robbers, but the results are more maddening than madcap. This overstuffed movie is more convoluted than it needs to be and has a lot of bad acting. “Busted Water Pipes” starts off with one idea and then goes quickly downhill when it veers off into another direction.
Directed by Zhou Difei, “Busted Water Pipes” was written by Zhou, Chong Zheng and Jiao Yufeng. The movie takes place in the fictional Chinese cities of Hoping and Kingstown. The movie was filmed in China. “Busted Water Pipes” is told in four chapters, with each chapter being more ridiculous as the story goes off the rails.
“Busted Water Pipes” begins by showing a SWAT police team responding to a hostage situation in Kingstown, which is a large city. A former SWAT captain, who had been an employee of the Kingstown Police Department for 10 years, has taken people hostage inside a building because he is angry about being fired. The hostage crisis is big news and is being televised live.
Unfortunately, the SWAT team was given the wrong building address for where the kidnapper and hostages are. The kidnapper sees the SWAT team break into the building across from where the kidnapper and hostages are. And the kidnapper decides to blow himself up, causing the entire building (where he and the hostages are) to explode, with the hostages and kidnapper dying in the explosion.
This fiasco makes international news. The Kingstown Police Department becomes a laughingstock. The leader of the SWAT team is an ambitious maverick named Yu Dahai (played by Eddie Peng), who had been considered a rising star in law enforcement. Dahai’s boss Chagnon (played by Prem Yadav) was the one who gave Dahai the wrong building address. However, Chagnon convinces Dahai to take the blame, with Chagnon promising that he will help Dahai in the future after the scandal dies down.
Dahai (who is a bachelor) is forced to resign from the Kingstown Police Department and is transferred to the small town of Hoping, which is a rural area. Hoping has a small police department with limited resources in a shabby building. The Hoping Police Department doesn’t get a lot of major crimes. A typical call to the Hoping police is to settle a fight among schoolchildren or to find a lost steer.
Needless to say, Dahai is extremely bored and thinks this job is beneath his level of skills and experience. Chagnon promised Dahai that would be in Hoping for one year, and then Chagnon would get Dahai transferred back to Kingstown. But that turns out to be an empty promise.
Seven years pass, Dahai is a police sergeant, but he is still stuck in Hoping. Chagnon then becomes a senator. Dahai foolishly thinks that Chagnon will help Dahai get transferred back to Kingstown. When Dahai calls Chagnon’s office to ask him about this promise, Chagnon orders his secretary Xia Yi (played by Jing Ci) to tell Dahai not to contact Chagnon again.
To make matters worse for Dahai, his boss gets promoted to the job that Dahai wanted in Kingstown. Hoping Police Department chief Lao Ge, also known as Old G (played by Yang Haoyu), who spends a lot of time sleeping on the job, gleefully transfers to Kingstown. Before he leaves, he tells Dahai that Dahai has a very good chance of being promoted to police chief of Hoping.
The remaining employees of the Hoping Police Department are Dahai and two goofy sidekicks: Li Baibai (played by Bu Yu) and Xiao Ma, also known as Little Ma (played by Jiang Xueming). They also get help from a guy named Monk (played by Fu Hang), a character that didn’t really need to be in the movie. Lao Ge fails in Kingstown, so he is sent back to Hoping.
These hapless employees find out that they soon could be out of a job. Chagnon has ordered that the Hoping Police Department get shut down because there are no major crimes in Hoping. And so, in a desperate attempt to keep their jobs, the Hoping Police Department cops decide to fabricate and stage crimes.
Meanwhile, the Luo crime family is looking for its next big scheme. Gang boss Luo Yin (played by Zhang Qi) wants to pass on the family’s crime business to his nephew Luo Siji (Allen Ai, also known as Allen), who is reluctant because Siji wants to keep his law-abiding job in another type of work. Yin doesn’t trust his hotheaded, vicious, and impulsive son Luo Hao (played by Zhou You) to take over the business. Other people in the gang are Luo Ma (played by Yang Zhen) and Niu Dalun (played by Yan Peilun).
“Busted Water Pipes” throws in a ridiculous story about an ancient pirate leader named Great Lady Chen, also known as Chen Yisao (played by Liu Yi Chun), whose pirate ship crashed and supposedly contains lost treasures. The Luo crime gang thinks the lost ship is underneath the Hoping police station. And so, the gang members pretend to be plumbers tasked with fixing busted water pipes in the police station. And there are at least two times in the movie where someone is wearing a bomb that looks like a neck collar and is threatened with death.
The rest of the movie wallows in a lot of fights and incoherence for this nonsensical scheme. And out of nowhere, there’s a subplot about Dahai being unexpectedly reunited with a 7-year-old girl who was a baby he saved from a building during the explosion that happened during the hostage crisis in Kingstown. In addition to dealing with this gang of robbers, Dahai has to protect this girl (who calls him “Daddy”) because she keeps tagging along while he tries to do his job. It’s all just a contrivance for this messy and mindless film that will only appeal to viewers who just want to see loud action scenes and don’t care if the story is garbage.
China Lion Distribution released “Busted Water Pipes” in select U.S. cinemas on January 30, 2026. The movie was released in China on January 23, 2026.