Happy Chinese New Year! Though the year of rat starts badly as Wuhan virus is on the spread. Today we are taking a look at Sembo 605103 Public Bath (銭湯) set which is based on the movie “Detective Chinatown 3”. The movie supposed to release during Chinese New Year but it has been postponed due to the virus outbreak. Sembo had the licensing deal for this movie and we do hope the movie will do well and help pushing the sale for the set. The photos in this review is courtesy of CK.

For the benefit of the readers, please watch the trailer on Youtube to familiarize yourself with the movie.

The actors in the movie from the left: Satoshi Tsumabuki, Haoran Liu, Baoqiang Wang and Tony Jaa. Wait, did I see Tony Jaa aka Ong Bak?

The detective duo visited a public bath featuring Kabuki face entrance.

A sexy lady in yukata greets the duo in bathhouse reception.

Notice the tattoo on her chest. We will talk about that when looking at the minifigure later.

And the duo walk into a bath house full of yakuza or Japanese mafia.

Open Box of Sembo 601503 Public Bath Set

A oversize box and the design wise a bit plain compared to other Sembo set. Guess the budget is stretched thanks to licensing deal. The set is considered medium size with 690 bricks. Nowadays the China clone bricks love to launch set that’s over thousand parts.

Back of the box has background information on the detective duo and the minifigures.

Single inner box is enough actually. Hard to persuade the clone brick maker to be environmentally friendly.

Instruction manual.

A correction on step 35.

Transfer decal sheet. Rest assure the print quality is top notch as this is made by Sembo. Just peel the decal, paste on the surface and rub to “transfer” the print and peel off.

The parts in the bags.

Building Process

The red pillar is stack on top here. It’s steady enough.

The building process is simple and straight forward. Does it look like the bath house in the movie? You could treat it as LEGO style public bath house.

Taking a look at the minifigures

Two main characters from the movie Qin Feng (Haoran Liu) and Tang Ren (Baoqiang Wang). Tang Ren had a weird skin tone. Sembo probably wanted to mimic the tan color skin but it end up green tint looking. The headset has taiji logo on it.

The receptionist with tattoo half covered on her chest which matched what we saw in the trailer.

Two yakuza members taking a bath.

Taking a look at the set

We would leave you to decide whether the set look like the scene from the movie. You could treat it as general LEGO style bath house or sento to incorporate into the street view. The floor size is 24 x 24 studs.

The entrance is a huge kabuki face and the roof is adorned with two golden dragons.

Doesn’t look very nice viewing from the side.

The inside of the bath house is segregated into reception and the bath area.

The entrance with two Japanese lanterns by the side.

Sleepy looking eyes.

Tang Ren walks into trouble…

Very clever use of the part here as roof tiles.

The logo on the lanterns are the same as what we saw in movie trailer.

The bath area is very small compared to what we saw in the movie. You might want to extend the bath area when MOC the set.

Small yet full of details.

Make up scene: “Why is she keeps looking at us?”

“Don’t you dare to touch her, she is the boss illegitimate daughter.”

Do you think the set will fit well into your street modular?

Summary

This is a interesting set on its own whether or not you have watched the movie. We would suggest you make further MOC to incorporate into your street modular set. You may order Sembo 605103 from Aliexpress.