I never heard of Detective Dee but saw a trailer for this film so I gave it a shot. It's a visually impressive movie and not just for the martial arts. There's an expansive view of a Chinese harbor for example, that's simply gorgeous, and the picture offers some exceptional stunts and clever wirework. The story line even has Detective Dee (Andy Lau) investigating cases of spontaneous human combustion, something I don't think I've seen outside of an X-Files episode. Various ideas are offered for the corpses consumed by fire, ultimately settling on death by fire beetles. There really are such things as fire beetles, but their name is derived from the fact that they are bioluminescent, similar to lightning bugs but without the flashing feature.
I read a handful of reviews and was puzzled by the number of comments that said the story was confusing and a mess. Seemed pretty straightforward to me, so I guess paying attention helps. The talking deer for example, was the result of Shangguan Jing'er's (Bingbing Li, great name!) ventriloquism and not something mystical. Speaking of deer, the martial arts aspect of those battling Detective Dee was an inventive gimmick even if the film makers went over the top with the idea.
I'm usually let down by most modern day martial arts flicks because they mostly follow a similar formula and try to outdo each other with the special effect fight scenes, but this one had the kind of craziness I haven't seen before. So I might be looking into some more Detective Dee stuff down the road. Hard to top this one though.
I read a handful of reviews and was puzzled by the number of comments that said the story was confusing and a mess. Seemed pretty straightforward to me, so I guess paying attention helps. The talking deer for example, was the result of Shangguan Jing'er's (Bingbing Li, great name!) ventriloquism and not something mystical. Speaking of deer, the martial arts aspect of those battling Detective Dee was an inventive gimmick even if the film makers went over the top with the idea.
I'm usually let down by most modern day martial arts flicks because they mostly follow a similar formula and try to outdo each other with the special effect fight scenes, but this one had the kind of craziness I haven't seen before. So I might be looking into some more Detective Dee stuff down the road. Hard to top this one though.