Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame Review

The Mystery Of Detective Dee


        (Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame)


1.
    I love going to film festivals.  Not so much because the movies are that
much better than the average studio releases, but because of the surprises.
    I just saw an Asian action film titled Detective Dee and the Mystery of
the Phantom Flame.  It is advertised as a Crouching Tiger like martial arts
film.  Detective Dee is that, but also is so much more.  I went to see a Kunfu
movie and was sucker punched by a world class mystery.
    I love mysteries, I love puzzles and this movie is just that.  It confronts
you with a murder mystery during the first five minutes.  The natural reaction
was that the mystery was nothing more that a way to get you from one action
sequence to another.
    Understand this that the action sequences in this film are amazing.  Detective
Dee has subplots on top of subplots that connect up perfectly in the end.
    Directed by Hark Tsui, a man known for the films the Swordsman and Once
Upon a Time in China.  He is considered by many to be the master of Kunfu action
films.  Make no mistake about it Hark Tsui does not make little second rate
fight films.  He makes martial arts epics and this time, after thirty plus years
in the business, he has made his masterpiece.
    Allow me to give you a basic review of the plot before I continue.  Detective
Dee is about the days leading up to the official crowning of the first and only
female Empress of China.  While inspecting a giant Buddha (bigger than the
statue of Liberty) being built in her honor one of the inspectors burst into flames
and dies in front of those assembled.  Five minutes later the chief officer investigating
the murder also is burned to dust.  Is this a supernatural act?  Did they offend
Buddha in some way?  Was poison involved?
    It’s a mystery that presents dozens of questions and answers every single
one of them.  Walking away from this film you will find yourself longing for
the days when mysteries were a part of the film going landscape.  It is playing
in a few art house theaters and will probably go unnoticed until it hits dvd, but
it is sure to become a minor classic.

Tucker And Dale vs. Evil, Review

    Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Review
                    By.
                Rodney Cannon

    In the never ending quest to cash in on the next fad more and more
horror movies are released each year and it seems like more and more are almost identical to the previous one.  As a life long fan of the genre I
was beginning to think that there would and could be anything new under the
sun and then a movie like Tucker and Dale vs. Evil comes along and my
faith is temporarily restored.
    At first you think that it is going to be just a comedy disguised as a slasher
film.  If it was that and if it was only that it would rank as one of the greatest send up
of the slasher film genre ever done, but, then it steers down a road that it has
paved for itself.
    Let’s begin at the beginning and I will try not to give away any more than
the trailer gives away.
    Tucker and Dale are two country boys who have achieved a life long dream
by purchasing a summer home in the wood (it’s a broke down shack that is not
bad for a backwoods man-cave).  On their way there these guy are spotted by the
group of kids in a SUV.  These young people immediately identify Tucker
and Dale as a threat.  Dangerous backwoods, Hills have Eyes, Wrong Turn, kind
of hillbillies out to killer and eat anyone who takes well the Wrong Turn into their
neck of the woods.  Why not?  It happens in the movies and it even happened to
one of the these kid’s parents.
    What follows is a comedy of one massive misunderstanding after another.
Each one more bloody and grizzly than the one before.  When you think that you
have the rhythm and can predict where this ride will take you, oh no, guess again.
There is even the old classic use of can the hero save the girl saw mill scene in
this film.  
    This movie never stops trying.  It never gives up and just when you think
that it is done with you, it throws another massive gag at you just before the
credits roll.
    If you laugh at things that others find disturbing or gruesome then this is
the film for you.  If you are like me and you need a break from the next remake of
a remake then find this film and enjoy.
    This is absolute the one movie this year that delivers what it promises. Tucker
and Dale vs. Evil is a winner.