Review of Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame - Exhaustive, and exhausting, lineup of fight scenes feels silly after a while.
This Chinese murder mystery (with a title that sounds like a Scooby Doo episode -- ruh roh) and wannabe epic bursts at the seams with nonstop hand-to-hand combat and is brought further down with the occasional phony-looking stage-set or CGI effects. But unlike its lineup of far superior kung fu predecessors over the past decade-plus -- CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON; HERO; HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, even May’s TRUE LEGEND -- DEE’s lack of compelling characters and abstruse storyline had me primarily wondering when it would end. The title character is based on legendary Tang Dynasty official Di Renjie, a real-life judge known in every Chinese household today and made famous in the West by Robert van Gulik’s Judge Dee mystery series, written in the mid-twentieth century.
The fictional story’s setup informs us that it’s 689 in the city of Luoyang. A series of bizarre deaths -- in which victims spontaneously burst into flame -- prompts the wise Empress Wu (Carina Lau) to release her political prisoner, Detective Dee (Andy Lau, of 2004’s HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS), with the proviso that he crack the case. The victims are all involved in the ongoing construction of a skyscraper-sized Buddhist statue, the official unveiling of which is timed to coincide with Wu’s inauguration as China’s first female emperor. She assigns her trusted bodyguard Jing (Li Bingbing) to keep an eye on the p.i.
Peering down upon the city from the great heights of the monument’s gargantuan eyes or up from the ground floor into an intricate interior bustling with builders make for wonderful visuals. Courtyards strewn with white petals and black-robed sentries in the rain -- even the textured surfaces of warriors’ armor or empress’s headdresses and elaborate do’s (very Queen Amidala of her) give pause. And your adrenaline pumps as lightning-quick arrows engulf a house, a magician’s acrobatics leave a rouge smear in their wake or assassins barrel kamikaze-style into a raging inferno.
But with every poignant visual or memorable moment come a handful of those that fail to impress -- and contribute to a final product paling in comparison to the aforementioned genre classics, and many more: the pagodas and riverboats we fly over look digital, those graceful leaps and bounds which first awed us in CROUCHING TIGER here seem a clumsy afterthought, even cliché; and the murky cave of the Ghost Market looks more like a Disney ride than a set piece meant to transport you. (And considering how long we linger there, they aim to get their money’s worth.) During the scene, logs shoot up from the water in a display of the devilish Imperial Chaplain’s magical prowess, yet while the cables aren’t visible, its wobbliness feels behind the times, unconvincing, unprofessional. Characters’ morphing faces look silly instead of cool. And the talking deer (plural)… Well, let’s just call them a low point, both as CGI and bad guys.
But most of all, the exhaustive, and exhausting, lineup of fight scenes feels silly after a while, and an overreliance on close-ups and slow-mo drag them out unnecessarily, sometimes making what's happening a challenge to deduce.
There’s nothing wrong with the acting – indeed, the cast is composed of some of China’s biggest stars, and they do all they can with what they’re given. Lau’s Empress sucked me in with her icy calm, but there’s little beneath her Cheshire cat grin that’s otherwise revealed.
The human fireballs aren’t nearly interesting enough to qualify as first half’s focus, and the skeletal remains thrash around far longer than any average joe would do in his or her death throes. But by the time the film's bigger-picture conundrum develops, I felt so worn out by the perma-fights and brassy, Bond-like score that I honestly didn’t care: show me two hours of interchangeable figures chopping away in a frenzy at one another, and any interest I may have had in this phantom is reduced to smoke in the wind.
See the trailer for Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame:
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame Details:
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Genre/s: Action Crime Mystery
Release Date/s: 09/02/2011 (Showtimes & Tickets)
Distributor: Indomina Releasing
Production Company: Huayi Brothers Media
CAST and CREW:
Starring: Andy Lau, Bingbing Li, Carina Lau, and Tony Leung Ka-fai
Directed By: Tsui Hark
Written By: Qianyu Lin, Chen Kuo-fo, Jialu Zhang
M.P.A.A. Rating: Rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images and some sexuality.
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame SYNOPSIS:
A period epic from genre master Tsui Hark (Seven Swords), DETECTIVE DEE is an action-packed, visually breathtaking Sherlock Holmes-style mystery starring some of China's top acting talent: Andy Lau, Bingbing Li, Carina Lau, and Tony Leung Ka-fai. Nominated for Best Special Effects at the 2011 Asian Film Awards and stunningly choreographed by master Sammo Hung, this intricately plotted whodunit is set in an exquisitely realized steampunk version of ancient China. On the eve of her coronation as Empress (Carina Lau, 2046), China’s most powerful woman is haunted by a chilling murder mystery: seven men under her command have burst into flames, leaving behind only black ash and skeletal bones. Recognizing this threat to her power, she turns to the infamous Dee Renjie (Andy Lau, Infernal Affairs, House Of Flying Daggers): a man whose unparalleled wisdom is matched only by his martial arts skills. As he battles a series of bizarre dangers, he unveils a chilling truth that places his life, and the future of an entire dynasty, in peril.