Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

Spectacular and goofy, Tsui Hark's martial-arts epic is set at the close of the 7th century, a time when cruel Wu Zetian (Carina Lau) is about to become China's first empress. As lavish preparations for her coronation (including a skyscraper-sized Buddha) are wrapping up, the festivities are marred by the murder of a couple officials—who spontaneously combust. To solve the crimes, Wu Zetian orders amazing Detective Dee (Andy Lau) to be released from prison, where he's spent the last eight years. Dee is joined—and sometimes opposed—by two other investigators, the empress-to-be's closest confidante, Jing'er (Li Bingbing), and judicial officer Pei Donglai (Deng Chao), both of whom are also adept in martial arts. The plot serves merely as the justification for a chain of ridiculous, overblown set-pieces that feature wildly balletic fights and campy face-offs, juiced up with special effects that include not only those aforementioned deaths-by-fire but also facial transformations aplenty and even wholesale shape-shifting. While the ending—which suggests one should obey authority, however perverted—might play better in China, no one is likely to be watching this film for moral instruction anyway. Recommended. (F. Swietek)