Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame is visually interesting,
but the story is somewhat confusing and the action falls flat.
I saw a trailer for Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon
that looked cool, so I requested it from the library. When it came in, I
checked IMDb to see if it was any good or not, and I found out it was actually
a prequel. I figured I had better watch the original one first. I love the Huayi Brothers movies. They're always so gorgeous.
The costumes in this movie were great. The sets were beautiful; I loved the use
of different colors of light. It was cool how the eyes of the Buddha looked out
over the city; it was such an interesting shape to look out of.
The action was confusing, though. I had no idea what was
going on half the time. I think I'd like to see fewer movies choreographed by
Sammo Hung. It just gets boring when you can't follow what's going on. I had a
hard time following the characters and the plot, too. I could've used some of
the pop-on character names from the Tai Chi movies here.
