Much like the final trilogy of Star Wars films, director-producer Tsui Hark's Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is at its best when flaunting its artificiality. When impossibly endless landscapes are CGI'd across the scenery. When a drop-kick to the chest sends an assailant flipping backward through the air--twice. This is the kind of over-the-top Asian aesthetic that favors melodrama over drama, the very approach that sunk those Lucas films for many fans. The choice of fantasy over fable, prevalent in Chinese detective fiction, works for Tsui's 7th-century Chinese historical epic, even if the details stall along the way. Tsui, probably best known to American audiences for his collaborations with John Woo (the first two A Better Tomorrow films, The Killer) sets a CSI-type mystery smack in the middle of a milestone in Chinese lore: The only instance in which a woman ascended to the throne. The true-life empress was Wu Zetian (played by Carina Lau), and the action takes place in the time leading up to her taking the reins of the Chinese kingdom. (Sorry, queendom.)
While thousands of citizens slave away erecting a gigantic Buddha statue in the empress's honor, a pair of workers, well, spontaneously combust. One ignites by the Buddha's left eye while touring inside the statue; the other melts away while galloping on horseback. Some blame divine intervention. But the imprisoned ex-rebel known as Detective Dee (the remarkably prolific Andy Lau) has other ideas when asked to investigate.
There's an unmistakable, unintentional X-Files feel here. Remember those episodes where the idea of the inexplicable hung out there for us to believe... only for science and logic to win over the day? Myth vs. science plays a role here too, turning the film into a bit of a classically styled mystery as Detective Dee charges ahead to suss out the reality of the "phantom flame," all while trusting no one and sensing corruption and evil.
When Tsui's film winds it way through Dee's fact-finding, the proceedings tend to slow more than expected. We've already been reeled in by the lure of leaping martial arts and furious editing, so the gaps without that action can feel empty. And maybe even longer than they actually are.
The fight scenes -- frenetic, witty and occasionally overdone -- are choreographed by the legendary Sammo Hung, who, aside from acting briefly in an American TV series, has served as action director on countless films since the late 60s. For Hung, action is "acting," an emotive and flashy way to entertain. When you can get your bearings as a viewer, such fight sequences can be dynamic, even elating; with Tsui's direction, much of the whiz-bang energy feels choppy, almost overly structured. It's missing the inherent flow present in many martial arts-filled movie battles and wirework.
As a grandiose, folkloric adventure, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame sometimes evokes an Indiana Jones film. Other times, it's reminiscent of those made-for-TV "Librarian" adventures starring Noah Wyle. If you can expect the lulls with the lavish, Detective Dee is decent fun that George Lucas would certainly approve of.
Aka Di Renjie
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