Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

I love when a whole bunch of different genres get mashed together into something strange and new. I love it more when it works, but I still appreciate the attempt when it doesn't. Tsui Hark's film, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is a historical fantasy murder mystery kung fu adventure movie, and for the most part, it clicks.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is set in 7th Century China, during the reign of the controversial first female Emperor. A massive statue of the Buddha is being built in preparation for her coronation. But when an official visiting the construction site spontaneously combusts, Detective Dee is called in to use his deductive reasoning to solve the mystery. We then follow him on his mission, and we see fantastical cities under cities, completely hidden from the sun, talking deer Gods, and people who can change their appearance via acupuncture pressure points.

Andy Lau (Infernal Affairs, a million billion billion other movies) portrays "Detective Dee", a fictionalized version of a real historical figure. He's a bit of a Sherlock Holmes type, well ahead of the curve in a lot of ways. When we meet him, he's been imprisoned for eight years for opposing the rule of the Empress that he is enlisted to help. I thought that aspect was interesting, his willingness to help a ruler he ideologically opposes for the good of China. In a way, it kind of reminded me of D'Artagnan of the Three Musketeers fighting so hard to protect the Queen's honor, even though he knows she's been sleeping around on the king. Does that make sense? Maybe just in my head.

My favorite character was Jing-er, played by Li Bing Bing. She acts as the Empress' right hand, and is sent to keep an eye on Dee. Her weapon of choice is a whip, and she's all sorts of awesome, and you're not quite sure where her loyalties lie.

As a whole, Detective Dee is an entertaining fantasy adventure with an interesting engaging mystery. I thought it would be a stretch to have a skeptical Holmes-ian character integrated into a world full of Chinese mysticism, but the mysticism is accepted as fact in the context of the movie and is all kind of taken in stride by the characters, and it actually works rather well.

The one element in the genre mish-mash that didn't really come together for me was the Kung Fu. Pretty surprising, right? There are some fun sequences and fights, but the way they were shot felt very Western to me. So much of it was done in tight close-up, with more cutting than is necessary. The best martial arts scenes in movies are shot in a way that we can see the fighters' whole bodies at work. If it's just patched together in editing, it's far less impressive.

Besides that aspect, though, the action sequences are all a lot of fun. They just feel more Hollywood than Hong Kong. Overall, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is an interesting and original piece of popcorn moviemaking, and totally worth a watch.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

When it comes to Hong Kong and Chinese cinema, I'm still learning. I've seen a few Kung Fu movies here and there, a couple of Wong Kar Wai movies, lots of Stephen Chow and Jackie Chan. Oh, and Infernal Affairs, I own that. Not much else. The 36th Chamber of Shaolin seems like a good place for me to start. It is considered one of the great martial arts movies of all time.

Made in 1978 as a Shaw Brothers production, and directed by Liu Chia-Liang, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin made a star out of a young Gordon Liu, a huge star in his own right, but best known to me as Johnny Mo and Pai Mei in the Kill Bill movies, in the role of San Te. San Te is a young man who joins the monks in Shaolin to learn their brand of Kung Fu, with the goal of introducing it to the oppressed people, and giving them a means to fight back against the Tartars.

A large bulk of the movie basically plays as the most awesome training montage ever. Over half of the movie is San Te's training, succeeding in difficult and painful trials, and climbing the ladder from the 35th Chamber all the way to the top. His first trial is simply finding a way to jump across a pool of water with a bundle of sticks floating in it, in order to get his food.

You'd think it would get boring, but it never does. San Te's single-mindedness and dedication to his goal, and the promise that his lessons will pay off in the end makes the training very engrossing and downright fun to watch. Not to mention the diversity and creativity behind each of the trials. At one point, they strap downward pointing knives to his biceps and make him carry buckets with his arms straight out. If he lowers them, he gets cut. Later, San Te invents a new weapon in order to defeat a higher ranking monk in a duel. Totally awesome.

I was really happy to see it subtitled on the DVD, rather than dubbed. The dubbing is one of the things that keeps me from watching a lot of Chinese movies. I really hate dubbing, and it seems like it's the only way a lot of these old movies are available.

So that's that. Another classic I can now say I've seen. Another gap in my knowledge filled. Next up, I suppose I should probably see Master of the Flying Guillotine, or maybe Hard Boiled or The Killer.

Wing Chun

My knowledge of Chinese and Hong Kong cinema is pretty shameful. While I have seen and enjoyed many Chinese films over the years, I was never able to put them into any kind of historical context. I'd love to know which directors most influenced the distinct style of Kung Fu movies in their early years. Did it all start with Bruce Lee? I somehow doubt it. One of the reason's I'm so ignorant is the difficulty of finding older Chinese films in their original language. They're almost all dubbed, and I have little to no patience for dubbing.

When looking for a Kung Fu movie to watch, I pretty much picked Wing Chun at random, because I recognized some of the names in it. It stars Michelle Yeoh as Yim Wing Chun, a girl who uses her Kung Fu mastery to save her friends, family, and even her entire village from a gang of bandits. It also stars Donnie Yen as her love interest.

Wing Chun is a pretty light-hearted movie, with a lot of comedy and a twisty little romance. It's pretty PG-rated. The humor is a little more over-the-top than I usually like, but I'll admit that I did laugh out loud a couple times.

The real centerpiece of the movie, is of course, the Kung Fu battles, and surprise! This movie is directed by the master choreographer, Yuen Wo Ping, the guy behind The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Kill Bill, and countless other martial arts spectacles. It goes without saying that the fights are a real treat. His trademark wire-fu is still in it, but it's a little older than those other movies, so the wires themselves are still very visible.

My favorite fight was probably the one where another master challenges Wing Chun to prove males are superior fighters. She sets up a tray of tofu and challenges him to smash it if he can. Then she effortlessly (ok, a little effort) keeps the tofu tray away from his blows by blocking him and tossing the tray itself around. It's a lot of fun, and there's a good deal of Jackie Chan-ish physical comedy involved. There's another great fight on top of a giant spear stuck in a rock wall, too.

Wing Chun was pretty enjoyable, though the story didn't really blow me away. It suited my needs, though, since, at the moment, I was looking for something light and breezy to watch, and something shorter in length than a lot of the more epic, House of Flying Daggers types of movies (I still haven't seen House of Flying Daggers, so you might see a review of that coming up in the future). Still, the fight choreography alone made the movie worth watching.

Next time, I might check out something more serious. I have it on good authority that Ip Man is a good one.