Review of Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010) by Daniel D — 23 Jan 2011

So Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame starts off awesome, and then gets more awesome with each passing minute. Tsui Hark hasn't hit a home run since Time and Tide, but he's done so with Dee.

I pretty much had a smile on my face for two hours. Tsui has made a fantastical historically-set wuxia pian (in the tradition of the great martial arts mysteries popular with the Shaw Brothers decades ago) with all of the modern trimmings, but what's more he hasn't forgotten the things that made him the most important Hong Kong filmmaker of his time, namely the gender issues, politics, and kinetic energy.