Detective Dee (2010)
Dec. 6th, 2011 12:50![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyDetective Dee & the Mystery of the Phantom Flame | Di renjie. Dir. Tsui Hark, 2010.
I went to see this movie withoyceter, troisroyaumes and other awesome people in October. It was pretty great!
The plot concerns the exiled Detective Dee (Andy Lau), formerly a high official under the previous Emperor who has been imprisoned for his opposition to the Dowager Empress, soon to be Empress in her own right, Wu Zetian. But as Wu's coronation approaches her spiritual counselor advises that Dee must be recalled to solve the mystery of spontaneous combustions around the colossal statue of Guan'yin that is being built in Chang'an to coincide with the coronation. Wu sets her trusted retainer Shangguan Jing'er (who is awesome, and played by the awesome Li Bingbing) to tail Dee, even though she can't stand him, and the plot is off on a roll.
All four of the principal actors were quite good, and I think that this may well be the most balanced portrayal of Wu Zetian I've ever seen in any medium: she does terrible things, but that's what it means to be emperor, and she does them for the good of the country--and Dee, by the end of the movie, comes to accept that and to respect Wu for it, which is even more striking in some respects. Interestingly enough, all three of the main characters are based on historical figures, and the Dee mysteries themselves are partly based on the Judge Dee series by Robert van Gulik, which were themselves originally based on his translation of the 18thC Chinese detective novel Di Gong An, which I now want to read.
Someone really needs to make icons of this movie, actually. I need to have Wu Zetian and Shangguang Jing'er and Detective Dee and the other guy on my journal.
I went to see this movie with
oyceter, troisroyaumes and other awesome people in October. It was pretty great! The plot concerns the exiled Detective Dee (Andy Lau), formerly a high official under the previous Emperor who has been imprisoned for his opposition to the Dowager Empress, soon to be Empress in her own right, Wu Zetian. But as Wu's coronation approaches her spiritual counselor advises that Dee must be recalled to solve the mystery of spontaneous combustions around the colossal statue of Guan'yin that is being built in Chang'an to coincide with the coronation. Wu sets her trusted retainer Shangguan Jing'er (who is awesome, and played by the awesome Li Bingbing) to tail Dee, even though she can't stand him, and the plot is off on a roll.
All four of the principal actors were quite good, and I think that this may well be the most balanced portrayal of Wu Zetian I've ever seen in any medium: she does terrible things, but that's what it means to be emperor, and she does them for the good of the country--and Dee, by the end of the movie, comes to accept that and to respect Wu for it, which is even more striking in some respects. Interestingly enough, all three of the main characters are based on historical figures, and the Dee mysteries themselves are partly based on the Judge Dee series by Robert van Gulik, which were themselves originally based on his translation of the 18thC Chinese detective novel Di Gong An, which I now want to read.
Someone really needs to make icons of this movie, actually. I need to have Wu Zetian and Shangguang Jing'er and Detective Dee and the other guy on my journal.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-06 20:59 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-06 21:05 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-06 21:23 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-06 22:39 (UTC)I thought Detective Dee sounded familiar - ahaha, I actually have a book, I think it's called Poets and Murder? that features him, and for a project in college I designed an RPG based on the events of the novel. Now I'm totally going to have to see that movie :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-06 23:51 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-07 00:37 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-07 01:13 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-07 02:13 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-07 19:36 (UTC)