Detective Dee & The Mystery of the Phantom Flame is a Chinese detective/action flick starring Andy Lau, Carina Lau, Li Bingbing, Deng Chao, and Tony Leung Ka-fai. Lots of other people, too, and I hope I get their roles right.
In the 7th century CE, Wu Zetian (Carina Lau) is about to become Empress. There's a huge statue of the Empress being built right outside the palace, and while it's being shown to a visiting ambassador (Michel), the inspector (Yan Qin) bursts into flames. And then it happens to a general (Jinshan Liu) a few minutes later! Nothing for it but to call the titular Detective Dee (Andy Lau), who is in prison for treason, so that's awkward.
Dee starts working the case, accompanied by the Empress' right-hand woman Shangguan Jing'er (Bingbing) and a Supreme Court enforcer Pei Donglai (Chao). Mystical shenanigans ensue, but also political ones, and eventually it turns out that the whole thing was orchestrated by Shatuo (Leung Ka-fai), a loyalist to the previous Emperor. Pei and Jing'er wind up dead, Dee winds up with the poison in his system that will cause him to burn in sunlight, the Empress promises to stop doing secret murders to her subjects.
So, it's a cool movie and the action scenes are awesome. My only issues with the movie aren't with the movie, they're that I'm not Chinese, and the pacing of it feels odd to me because I'm not used to it. I was also expecting something...less tragic, I guess? I'm not sure why, as I think about it, because murder mysteries do tend to have some death and loss (obviously, else they wouldn't be murder mysteries), but this had Constantine levels of supporting character death.
I like the movie more as I sit with it; may have to check out a couple of the prequels at some point.
My Grade: B
Rewatch Value: Low
Next up: Key Largo
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