Indomina Releasing
Andy Lau enters the Phantom Bazaar in the historical martial-arts thriller, "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame."
"Master Jia died inside the Buddha's left eye."
That's a statement you don't expect, even at the movies. It offers a clue to the distinctiveness -- especially in the current film marketplace -- of "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame," a fun, vivid Chinese mystery/martial-arts action epic, set during the Tang Dynasty in 690 A.D., when for the first and only time a woman ascended to China's imperial throne.
On the eve of her coronation as Empress, China's most powerful woman is haunted by a chilling murder mystery: seven men under her command have ...
Rating: PG-13 for violence, disturbing images and some sexuality
Length: 122 minutes
Released: September 2, 2011 NY/LA
Cast: Andy Lau, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Bingbing Li, Carina Lau, Jean-Michel Casanova
Director: Hark Tsui
Writer: Kuo-fu Chen, Jialu Zhang
"Detective Dee" is directed by Hong Kong master Tsui Hark ("Peking Opera Blues," "Once Upon a Time in China"), who -- unlike his compatriots John Woo and Ronny Yu -- quickly returned to his homeland after experiencing the frustrations of American action filmmaking. The star is Andy Lau as the historical figure Dí Rénjié, or "Detective Dee," also the hero of the popular "Judge Dee" detective novels written by Robert van Gulik. (The books inspired the 1974 TV movie "Judge Dee and the Monastery Murders," which represented ABC's attempt to develop a Charlie Chan series in period dress.)
Here, Dee -- wielding his almost magical "Dragon Taming Mace," which can identify an opponent's weak spot -- is investigating the apparent spontaneous- combustion deaths of several figures involved in the construction of a colossal, towering Buddha figure, intended for the coronation of the empress (Carina Lau). His detective work takes him inside the spooky underworld "Phantom Bazaar" and to the court of the mysterious imperial Chaplain, where he is attacked by several spotted deer with lethal antlers. The computer-generated ungulates are unconvincing (the overall reliance on CGI is a disheartening development in Chinese action cinema), but the sequence is one of the most memorable of the year, as the Chaplain lunges at the detective in frieze-like images as dynamic as comic-book panels, red cloak a blur, face a demonic mask. Tsui's lighting effects are eerie and expressionistic; and if "Detective Dee" isn't up to the standards of classic Hong Kong martial arts cinema, it at least represents a welcome Asian furlough from the copycat bloat of guncentric Hollywood violence.
In Mandarin with English subtitles, "Detective Dee" is at Malco's Ridgeway Four.
-- John Beifuss: (901) 529-2394
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