Detective Dee

[Drunk Monk]

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

Those of us who remember the Fant-Asia wave of the '90s - and that's probably just ED, CF & LCF - this film revitalizes the genre. And it's from the King of Fant-Asia, Tsui Hark. Tsui did OUATICI & II, Swordsman, Chinese Ghost Story, Zu Warriors, and worked a lot with John Woo. We loved those movies but now their special effects are horribly dated. Well, Tsui just entered the CGI world big time with Dee. Dee is an old kung fu tale, imagine a medieval Sherlock Holmes that does kung fu and magic. It's very entertaining - like a comic book film with glaringly overdone heroes and villains, super saturated color schemes and a lot of flying about. The fight choreography was done by Sammo Hung, so it's also entertaining. It's high fantasy wire work, with strange kung fu physics (kung fu physics are like looney tune physics - where looney tunes are all rubbery, kung fu defies gravity). Most of all, it takes a few unexpected turns, just like the old Fant-Asia story arcs used to. Long live Fant-Asia 2010!

Tsui just signed Jet for a 3D Fant-Asia flick based on another classic kung fu tale. I'm looking forward to that a lot now. Dee would have been even better in 3D.

I have a ripped DVD of Dee that's a little stuttery, but it has subs and i deem it DOOMworthy. I've been wanting to present y'all something that's up-to-date Chollywood, and this is a good example.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Cholly good.

[Drunk Monk]

I might have to poach that for my next column.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Tsui Hark is being used by Apple to talk about Final Cut Pro X in a new ad campaign. He talks about working on the Detective Dee prequel and using FCP X. It's probably mostly for filmmaker geeks which is a rather small sub-section of the Doom clique but I aim to be thorough on this forum.

Tsui Hark Story

[El Dingo]

Wow! This was made in 2010!

I saw this a while ago (Showtime?) and assumed it was a 1990's offering so I didn't post a review.

I really enjoyed it. It reminded me of the Jackie Chan flick's of the '80s/90's. The story is really fun and the fights are well-shot/choreographed. I blame the relative obscurity of this film on the nostalgic look and feel and horrible title.

[Drunk Monk]

...might have even been at Maggimoto Castle, as that's where we've been doing most of the Doom video Gatherings, save for a few at the Cranefly roost.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Saw it on Showtime last night -- excellent!

[Drunk Monk]

Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon

This is the Batman Begins for Detective Dee.  Tsui Hark is again at the helm so it's an over-the-top spectacle of cgi-effects, flying fu, baroque imperial fashion, flowing silk and ubiquitous slo mo.  This was actually released in the U.S. for a week and I'm really bummed that it totally slipped under my radar as it would have been great on the big screen.  In China, it was a blockbuster and in 3D.  A lot of CGI stuff flies at the screen, daggers, darts, flying guillotines, shrapnel - would have been fun in 3D.  Fant-ASIA is the PRC equivalent of comic book films in Hollywood - effect-driven fluff, yet entertaining and very profitable.  The new leads are serviceable - Mark Chao as Dee is a little weak, but he is supposed to be young.  Feng Shaofeng makes up for his as his rival/comrade.  Angelababy is enchanting as the top courtesan and Carina Lau is icy as the 'off with his head' Queen of Hearts...errr...Empress Wu.  The story is Chinese Sherlock Holmes (Downey version) meets Beauty and the Beast/Creature from the Black Lagoon bookended by Gojira.  Tsui Hark goofiness.  Awesome Kung Fu physics.  Lots of flying sword fights.  

If you liked the first Dee, this one is on par.

[youtube]doHAaothY70[/youtube]

[Drunk Monk]

Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings

The Four Heavenly Kings are Buddhist guardians, situated towards the front gate of Chinese Buddhist temples.  They are also a nickname for a quartet of 90s HK Cantopop.  The is the second prequel - squeezed in between Phantom Flame and Sea Dragon, again directed by the visionary Tsui Hark.  

I watched the first half on Friday and it was silly. Dee (Chao again) is gifted the Dragon Taming Mace by the Emperor and the Empress, with the icy Carina Lau reprising the role of Wu Zetian, gets jealous so she usurps Dee's agency and sends out some huckster jianghu after him.  There were lots of absurd CGI fights with boomerang shields, blades and shuriken, and everyone can leap tall buildings with wire fu parkour.  There was a lot of absurd nonsense like watching a mediocre comic book movie - overdone sets and costumes, too many effects, no real character development, overacting and some flailing attempts at humor.  I started to doze and it was only like 9-10PM.  It had been a rough week and I was saddened that the mighty Tsui had fallen so low.

I finished it Saturday and it was like a completely different film.  There was a good mcguffin with Empress Wu and then the CGI kicked into high gear. Sanzang (the monk from Journey to the West) is a character and in an attempt to contact him, a nice little extra-dimensional Buddhist plane rift opens for a hallucinogenic carp scene (man, I gotta just keep meditating until I reach that level), and then it's like Godzilla vs. King Kong only Godzilla is a Chinese demon covered with eyes that shoots giant tongue urchins and King Kong is a white gorilla (a nod to the monkey king).  There's a China v India theme because it wasn't about those jianghu - it was about an Indian cult (Garuda cameo) and things just get super cheesey visually in that fant-ASIA style over which Tsui still reigns supreme.

Not a great film in the end.  Better than Sea Dragon but not on the level of Phantom Flame.  But not disappointing for Tsui fans, if you can just make it to the second half when things take off.