Movie Review: Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is a Hong Kong Action/Mystery film released in 2010 and directed by Tsui Hark. The story is about Di Renjie (Andy Lau), a celebrated official of the Tang Dynasty, tasked by Empress Wu Zetian (Carina Lau) to solve a series of deaths via spontaneous human combustion.

I was surprised to learn that this movie is inspired by an 18th century Chinese detective novel Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee, the English translation published in 1949. This stuff really goes back. It's a pretty interesting bit of trivia but the movie has little to do with the book.

Empress Wu Zetian is about to ascend to the imperial throne. Of course she has political enemies, even more so since she's a woman. A woman as head of state was unprecedented at the time. In honor of her coronation, a giant statue of Buddha is constructed and things hit a snag when one of its designers suddenly bursts into flames.

Aaaaaaahhh!

I was already interested with the idea of a detective movie set in Imperial China, but the opening mystery of people inexplicably exploding into fireballs got my attention.

So what's causing all these government officials to go to an early fiery retirement? This looks like a job for master detective Dee who, by the way, has been locked up in prison for the last eight years on charges of treason. Hey, it's no big deal. I love scenes where heroes are summoned from retirement/confinement to do a job only they can do. The Empress doesn't seem to mind letting him have a crack at it. On his part, Dee has no hard feelings since the whole affair was not borne of personal animosity to the empress but out of his concern for the state. That's how you can tell who's the hero in Chinese films.

The movie isn't all sleuthing and deducing. There's plenty of kung-fu action to go around and it's pretty damn good. The fight choreography was arranged by Sammo Hung so this is no third-rate movie we're talking about here. This is a blockbuster style movie with a big budget to match. The visuals are great to look at, the setting is rich, and the costumes are eye-catching, especially the empress' outrageous robes and hairdos.

You know who's in charge.

The CGI is... good enough. While CGI is a necessity for movies nowadays and allows movie makers to show stunning visuals they could not otherwise practically create, the problem is always if the CGI will age well or "hold up" in time. For the most part, the CGI in this movie is good. There may be some problems in certain areas. Without spoiling too much, there's a scene where Dee interacts with a bunch of animals. But overall, the CGI is good. It's not distracting and serves the movie well.

It's interesting that the movie is not fantastical. What I mean by that is that there's no magic spells, ghosts, chi energy, or any of that kind of stuff. In fact, one of the themes of the movie is Dee's dismissal of supernatural causes of events in favor of more rational explanations. The movie is presented with a sort of realness to it, until you get to the fight scenes that is. Oh, the fight scenes. It's all well and good to talk about logic and reason but when it comes time to throw down, people are leaping sixty feet in the air, spinning, twirling, and kicking logs at each other. Surprisingly, the movie doesn't suffer for this. This is pretty much a thing you can hand-wave away in Chinese cinema. "Wire-fu" is a convention of the genre. Their ludicrous feats of martial skills are not meant to be seen as a sort of magic ability but rather, as a way to enhance the characters. It makes them seem important, like mythical characters out of an epic tale. It fits. A more visceral, realistic take on fight scenes a la The Raid would not have worked.

Detective Dee is not working alone though. The empress sends her favorite officer Jing'er (Li Bingbing) to keep an eye on Dee.

Jing'er

She's not exactly a romantic interest but more of a foil. She's an annoyance to Dee, naturally, but she can kick ass and is super serious towards her duties to her mistress. Dee and Jing'er frequently get sassy and sarcastic to each other, which is entertaining. Another character, and my personal favorite, is Pei (Chao Deng).

My boy, Pei.

He's a police official who has white hair, wears all black, wields an axe, and has a perpetual scowl on his face. He's so edgy, I love it. He's more independent minded than Jing'er and is willing to accept explanations that may not be pleasant to hear for those in the imperial court. The main cast play off each other well but the star is of course Dee, the Sherlock Holmes who puts together the clues and pursues the leads.

Dee inspects the evidence.

But don't think this is a movie where the audience can "play along". You won't spot the answer early on or anything. The mystery unravels in an orderly manner. It's still fun nonetheless, to follow the heroes as they uncover the truth. The pacing is good and the movie kept my attention all throughout.

Overall, it's a pretty good movie and worth checking out.