This next review is for Cine-Asia's upcoming martial arts detective fantasy, Detective Dee: Mystery Of The Phantom Flame, available on DVD and Blu-Ray from 27th of June. Please Check out the review after the jump.
I’ve made my feelings on Asian cinema very clear on our podcast and on the old podcast, and I generally do love Asian movies. I am however not a fan of fantasy, I just can't get into the whole fantasy genre, although I do love Sci-fi which is pretty much fantasy. So I was a bit apprehensive when the review disc for Detective Dee turned up and even though I find it hard too get into the whole fantastical mythological side of cinema I still had to watch it and review it.
Detective Dee: Mystery Of The Phantom Flame is set during the Tang dynasty during the first hundred years of it's reign. It concerns the the inauguration of the first and only empress in Chinese history and a series of mysterious deaths that occur. The empress orders her sort of head of security to bring Detective Dee, The most brilliant criminal investigative mind in the world to the city to investigate the murders. Dee was imprisoned by the empress for speaking out against her taking the throne. Dee takes the case and along with Jing'er the queens head of security and donglai, an albino
cop of sorts, get on the case and work towards uncovering the plot.
Obviously due to the film not actually being released until the 27th June, I can't go into much of the plot due to spoilers, but the film really didn't hit home for me, The performances are excellent, the music is good, the VFX are beautiful and Sammo Hung's fight Choreography is phenomenal but there was too much going on for me to really get sucked into this world. Im not saying the film is bad because it certainly isn't but for someone who found Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes to be a complete misfire with casting and style and which Dee has been compared to too, the hopes I had for the film were seriously crushed.
The film was directed by the legendary Tsui Hark, producer of The Killer, Hard Boiled and A Better Tomorrow and director of Seven Swords and the Van Damme vehicles Double Team and Knock Off, shows a lot of great visual flair and his control of the camera during the epic fight scenes is faultless. One really interesting scene involves a canoo and some wooden pillers that come out of the what and it's brilliantly shot. The VFX are really really good, from wide shots of a harbour filled with boats and the city looks amazing.
The fight choreography, courtesy of the one and only Sammo Hung utilizes wire work which does obviously enhance the fantastical element of the film but for me I think wire work has been over used and would much rather return to the days of full on fights that don't have the fighters flying around the screen, but then I guess the Hong Kong film industry has always used this. Sammo's choreography is great and while I do find wire work over used, here it fits as this is a sort of fantasy film even though it does take place during a real period of chinese history and does tell a story of Di Renjie (detective Dee) who was a real official in Empress Wu Zetian's reign, so it adds does add a great deal of artistic licence to a film based on historical fact. Sammo also utilizes weapons such as swords, bows and arrows, Mace's and a pretty cool whip. But then you do need to remember that China and Hong Kong are the leaders in action cinema.
There is a great deal of adventure in film as it has the main characters on the journey to solve the case. One section of the film takes us to an underground dwelling that acts as a home for the fantastical people that inhabit it. There is a man with six arms playing a sort of lute as Dee and team sail past. This section reminded me of Hellboy 2 where Hellboy and team enter the other world where there are various different creatures walking about this creature market place and it's pretty cool. The style and look is very dark, wooden beams surround the ceilings and the place is lit by fire which give the place this burnt out orange look.
Then we have the cast.
As usual Andy Lau continues to kick some serious butt on screen. He is to me the asian equivanlent of Tom Cruise, a box office draw and he's great as detective Dee, but it's Andy Lau and he pretty much is spot on everytime. Ever since the first time I saw him in God Of Gamblers all the way up the Infernal Affairs trilogy I have always been impressed by Lau and Dee is another great performance. He plays Dee as this philosophical character, unlike Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock Holmes you can get into the fact that Lau is Dee where as with Holmes, Downey Jr is just annoying, unbelievable and you can't understand what he's saying. So bow down at the alter of Andy Lau.
Li Bing Bing reminded me too much of Michelle Yeoh and although she does a good job I did always have that thought of 'michelle Yeoh could do this' which was quite off putting to me. But she's still pretty good and what she does with that whip Indiana Jones could only dream of. I hope I don't get the same feeling when she I see her in Jackie Chan's upcoming 1911 film.
Chao Deng plays albino 'cop' of sorts Donglai and he is very good, the only other film I've heard of with him in is Assembley and I have still yet to see that film. I think he will become a big star over in asia and hope to see him more in the future.
Finally rounding out the cast is Tony Leung Kar Fai who was in the last Cine-Asia release, Young Bruce Lee here plays Dee's old friend and the forman for the building of the giant statue over looking the Empress's palace. Kar Fai is always great and was great to see him in a smaller role here.
So what is my final verdict on Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame?
While the film did have great production values, some great action sequences and some good performances, I found the film overlong, it seemed to drag at times and there seemed to be to much going on that my attention just faded at times. It's definitely not bad film but I just didn't mix well with it. Tsui Hark is a great director and producer and he did do a great job with the look of the film but I just couldn't get on with the story and there were too many twists which again was off putting. I suppose it's my inability to enjoy Fantasy to the fullist that prevented me from really getting the movie and completely enjoying it but this is only one man's opinion. It's a well made film but for this reviewer it just didn't completely work....For fans of Asian period films die hard kung fu movies I think.
THE DISC:
Another great package from the guys at Cine-Asia. Detective Dee arrives onto dvd with a 2 disc special edition.
The special features include:
- Audio commentary by Mike Leeder and Bey Logan
- English Subtitles
- Dolby digital: Mandarin 2.0 and 5.1 Sound
- Trailer Gallery
- Interview Gallery with Tsui Hark (Director), Li Bing Bing, Sammo Hung, Andy Lau, Deng Chao, Wang Zhonglei, Carina Lau, Chen Kuo-Fu, Zhang Jialu, James Chu (Art Director), Chan Chor Keung (DOP#1) and Chan Chi Ying (DOP#2)
- Behind The Scene's Making Of
- A 22 minute introduction to Cine-Asia
- Other Cine-Asia releases
Detective Dee: Mystery Of The Phantom Flame is out on 27th of June 2011 on 2 disc DVD and single Disc Blu-ray.
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